(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) The blast hit the mosque in Shikarpur around 470 kilometres north of Karachi as hundreds of worshippers attended Friday prayers.
Shikarpur: A powerful bomb tore through a busy Shia mosque in Sindh on Friday killing more than 60 people in the country’s deadliest sectarian attack in nearly two years.
The blast hit the mosque in Shikarpur around 470 kilometres north of Karachi as hundreds of worshippers attended Friday prayers.
Investigators look for forensic evidence at the mosque in Shikarpur on Friday. — AP
Sindh health minister Jam Mehtab Daher said that “the death toll from the attack has increased to 61”.
“There are 54 dead bodies in Shikarpur hospital. Seven others died in Sukkur and Larkana hospitals” he said.
Shaukat Ali Memon the medical superintendent of Civil Hospital in Shikarpur earlier gave a death toll of 48.
Hundreds of people rushed to the scene after the blast to try to dig out survivors trapped under the roof of the mosque which collapsed in the explosion witness Zahid Noon said.
Television footage of the aftermath showed chaotic rescue scenes as people piled the wounded into cars motorbikes and rickshaws to take them for treatment.
“The area is scattered with blood and flesh and it smells of burnt meat people are screaming at each other... it is chaos” Noon said.
“A huge contingent of police and rangers is present here and ambulances from the nearby towns have started to arrive.”
Local resident Mohammad Jehangir said he had “felt the earth move beneath my feet” as he prayed at another mosque around 1.5 kilometres away.
An official with a Shia organisation Rahat Kazmi said that up to 400 people were worshipping in the mosque when the blast struck.
Sainrakhio Mirani police chief of the region said officers were still working to determine whether it was a suicide bombing or whether the 6-7 kilogramme bomb was detonated remotely.
It is the bloodiest single sectarian attack in Pakistan since March 2013 when a car bomb in a Shia neighbourhood of Karachi killed 45.
A spokesman for the shadowy Jandullah militant group a splinter faction of the Pakistani Taleban said they were behind the blast.
“We claim responsibility for attack on Shias in Shikarpur very happily” Ahmed Marwat said.
Locals said many people lost relatives in the attack.
Mohabbat Ali Bablani a Shikarpur local said four of his cousins aged between 30 and 40 were killed in the blast while his friend had lost five children all under 13.
“My friend Nizamuddin Sheikh has lost his five sons. He had taken them with him to offer prayers and all of them were killed in the attack” he said.
Friday’s attack came as Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited Karachi the capital of Sindh province to discuss the law and order situation in the city.
After Friday’s attack a group of angry people came out in streets and blocked main traffic artery in the central Karachi city during evening rush hours. They chanted slogans against the attackers and beat their chests in protest.
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