press trust of india
Lahore, July 24: A powerful suicide blast near residence-cum-office of Pakistan’s Punjab province Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif in Lahore Monday killed 26 people, including policemen, and wounded more than 57 others.
“Police and Lahore Development Authority officials were busy in removing encroachments outside the Arfa Karim Tower, located near the CM’s Model Town residence, when a powerful blast took place,” Rescue 1122 Deeba Shahnaz said. The chief minister, who is also the brother of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was in a meeting at his Model Town office when the blast took place. According to Rescue 1122, at least 26 people including policemen have been killed in the blast and more than 57 others injured.
Earlier, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan put the death toll at 14 but said the toll may rise. Rescue teams shifted the injured to hospital. Emergency was declared in city hospitals. “The condition of several injures is stated to be critical” Shahnaz said. Lahore police chief Capt (R) Amin Wains confirmed that it was a suicide blast and the “target was police”. Citing police sources, the Geo News reported that a suicide attacker targeted police personnel deployed at the site. Mean while, at least 36 people were killed and 42 wounded Monday after a Taliban-claimed car bomb struck a bus carrying government employees through a Shiite neighbourhood in there, raising fears of sectarian violence in the Afghan capital.
The assault came as a presidential spokesman said the Taliban also killed at least 35 civilians in an attack on a hospital in central Ghor province over the weekend. The deadly attacks underscore spiralling insecurity in Afghanistan as the resurgent Taliban ramp up their offensive across the country, while security forces struggle to contain them.
In Monday’s blast the bus was carrying employees of the ministry of mines, passing from western Kabul to the downtown ministry during rush hour, interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said. It was struck by the car bomb as it passed through a busy area of the capital that is home to many Shiite Hazaras, a persecuted ethnic minority. An AFP photographer at the scene saw multiple bodies and wounded people in the street, surrounded by shattered glass as security forces cordoned off the area.
