Dozens dead after bomb explodes at Pakistan hospital

Mourners for a prominent lawyer who was killed earlier on Monday are thought to be among the victims

A suicide bomb attack in the grounds of a government-run hospital in the southwestern Pakistan city of Quetta has killed at least 70 people and injured more than a hundred others.

The explosion occurred as mourners, mostly lawyers and journalists, gathered to accompany the body of Bilal Anwar Kasi, a prominent lawyer, who was shot and killed in the city earlier on Monday.

More than 50 mourners were entering the emergency department of the hospital, accompanying Mr Kasi's body, when the bomb went off, Faridullah, a journalist who was at the scene, told Reuters.

Hours after the attack, a breakaway faction of a militant Taliban group claimed responsibility. In a statement, Ahsanullah Ahsan, spokesman for Jamaat-ul-Ahrar militant group, also said their men killed Mr Kasi, the president of Baluchistan Bar Association, and then targeted the mourners who had gathered at the government-run Civil Hospital. The group has been behind several attacks in Pakistan in recent years. The claim could not be independently verified.

A Pakistani man who survived the bombing described a horrifying scene, saying there were “bodies everywhere” after the blast.

Waliur Rehman said he was taking his ailing father to the hospital's emergency ward when the explosion shook the building. He said the blast – which struck at the gates of the building – was so powerful that they both fell down.

Mr Rehman said when he looked up he saw bodies of the dead and heard the wounded crying out for help.

“It was a suicide attack,” said Zahoor Ahmed Afridi, a senior police officer. Afridi said the attacker struck shortly after Kasi's body was brought in.

Abdul Rehman, the director at the Civil Hospital, said earlier the bombing had killed 67 people, mostly lawyers. Two journalists working for Pakistani news channels were also killed in the attack, according to Shahzada Zulfiqar, the President of the Quetta Press Club.

Television footage from the site showed scenes of chaos, with panicked mourners fleeing through debris as smoke filled the corridors of the hospital's emergency ward.

Police cordoned off the hospital following the blast, restricting access to the area.

Anwalullah Kakar, the government spokesman in southwestern Baluchistan province, said an investigation is underway. Sarfraz Bugti, the provincial interior minister, denounced the attack as an “act of terrorism.”

Sanaullah Zehri, chief minister in Baluchistan province, said both the bombing and Kasi's slaying seemed to be part of a plot to disrupt peace in the provincial capital.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif strongly condemned the blast in Quetta and expressed his “deep grief and anguish over the loss of precious human lives” in the attack, in which several senior lawyers were also killed.

“No one will be allowed to disturb the peace in the province that has been restored thanks to the countless sacrifices by the security forces, police and the people of Baluchistan,” he said in a statement. Mr Sharif asked the local authorities to maintain utmost vigilance and beef up security in Quetta.

Later on Monday, the prime minister travelled to Quetta to meet the wounded and assess the situation.

General Raheel Sharif, Pakistan's powerful army chief, also visited the hospital, and met with the wounded. According to a military statement, he ordered intelligence agencies to track down and apprehend all those linked to Monday's attack.

Ali Zafar, the head of the country's main lawyers' association, condemned the blast as “an attack on justice.” He said lawyers will observe three days of mourning and will not appear in court in solidarity with their colleagues and others killed in the attack.

Quetta and the rest of Baluchistan province have long been hit by insurgency. There are several ethnic Baluch separatist groups operating in the resource-rich province, but al-Qaeda, the Pakistani Taliban and other militant groups also have a presence in the region.

Reuters with Associated Press