At least 70 people were killed and over 100 others wounded in a suicide bombing on Monday at the emergency ward of Quetta’s Civil Hospital, where scores of people had gathered to mourn the death of Balochistan Bar Association (BBA) president Bilal Anwar Kasi in a gun attack earlier in the day.
The Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter group of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the targeted killing of Advocate Kasi and the subsequent blast.
The militant Islamic State group also claimed responsibility for the suicide attack, Reuters quoted the IS’s Amaq news agency as saying. ‘A martyr from the Islamic State detonated his explosive belt at a gathering of justice ministry employees and Pakistani policemen in...Quetta,’ the Amaq report said released from Cairo, Egypt.
Law enforcement officials believed that the two attacks were connected and the blast was carried out by a suicide bomber.
They said that the body of Mr Kasi, who was shot dead by two armed assailants, was brought to the Civil Hospital and a number of his friends, colleagues and relatives as well as a posse of press photographers and television cameramen also reached there as soon as they got the news.
Fifty-five of the 70 dead were lawyers, including BBA’s former president Baz Muhammad Kakar, former Supreme Court Bar Association vice president Syed Qahir Shah, Advocate Sangat Jamaldani, son of Balochistan National Party-Mengal secretary general Jahanzeb Jamaldani, and Advocate Dawood Lasi, son of former federal minister Dr Abdul Malik Kasi.
As the number of mourners increased, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of the emergency department, killing scores of people.
Two cameramen — Shahzad Khan and Mehmood Khan— working for Aaj TV and DawnNews, respectively, were also killed.
Witnesses said that there was complete chaos at the hospital as bodies lay on the ground, some still giving off smoke, among pools of blood and shattered glass.
Shocked survivors were seen fleeing through debris, some crying and comforting one another, as smoke filled the hospital corridors.
Witness Waliur Rehman said he was taking his ailing father to the emergency ward when the explosion shook the building, knocking them both to the ground.
A state of emergency was declared in hospitals across Quetta and several wounded were shifted to other hospitals.