At least 52 people have been killed and more than 50 injured in a suicide attack at a religious political party’s gathering to mark the birthday of the prophet Mohammed in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province, health officials and police said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the blast, which comes amid a surge in the number of attacks claimed by militant groups in the west of the country before national elections scheduled for January next year.

“The bomber detonated himself near the vehicle of the deputy superintendent of police,” the deputy inspector general of police, Munir Ahmed, told Reuters, adding that the blast occurred near a mosque where people were gathering for a procession to mark Mohammad’s birthday, which is a public holiday.

The Pakistani Taliban, an umbrella group of various hardline Sunni Islamist groups, denied it had carried out the attack.

The casualties were being treated at hospitals in Mastung, near Quetta. A senior police officer, Mohammad Nawaz, was among the dead, a government administrator, Atta Ullah, said.

The authorities had asked police to be on maximum alert to the risk of militants targeting gatherings to celebrate Mawlid an-Nabi, which involves day-long celebrations and the distribution of free meals.

In a statement, the caretaker interior minister, Sarfraz Bugti, denounced the bombing and expressed sorrow over the deaths. He said it was a “heinous act” to target people at a Mawlid an-Nabi procession.

The government had declared a national holiday for Mawlid an-Nabi, and President Arif Alvi and the caretaker prime minister, Anwaarul-haq-Kakar, had used separate massages to call for unity and for people to adhere to the teachings of Islam’s prophet.

The Pakistani Taliban is a separate group but a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, which seized power in neighbouring Afghanistan in August 2021 as US and Nato troops were in the final stages of their pullout from the country after 20 years of war.

Previous deadly attacks in Balochistan and elsewhere have been claimed by Islamic State. The gas-rich south-western Balochistan province, on the borders of Afghanistan and Iran, has been the site of a low-level insurgency by Baloch nationalists for more than two decades. They initially wanted a share of provincial resources, but later launched an insurgency calling for independence.

Source: The Guardian 

BDST: 1537 HRS, SEP 29, 2023
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