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Pakistani mourners burry the coffin of suicide bombing victim into the grave during a funeral. An explosion claimed by the Pakistani Taliban killed at least 26 people and injured dozens in a busy vegetable market in the Pakistani city of Lahore on July 24, officials said. |
Anger was growing in Pakistan Tuesday as the grief-stricken relatives of
26 people killed by a suicide bomber in Lahore a day earlier buried their loved
ones and demanded the government publicly hang the masterminds of the attack.
Families and residents in the bustling eastern city demanded action as
they attended funeral prayers, and as the chief minister of Punjab province
Shahbaz Sharif brother of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited survivors in
hospital.
"We demand from the Government of Pakistan that those who are
involved in this incident and those who are the facilitators should be hanged
in public," Hafiz Naseer ul Din, uncle of a policeman killed in the blast.
"We came here in great grief," added Shaikh Rizwan, a local
resident who attended the funeral prayers for some of the victims.
"Twenty-six people were martyred here yesterday, I request my
government that please uproot these terrorists fully so our country can
progress," he said.
The powerful blast Monday hit a busy vegetable market on a bustling main
road in the southern part of Lahore, blowing out the windows in nearby
buildings.
Many of those killed in the attack were police who were clearing
shopping stalls that had illegally encroached on to the road.
On Tuesday distraught relatives carried the coffins of two policemen,
brothers who were killed in the attack, to a petrol pump which had been turned
into a makeshift prayer ground.
Floral wreaths from local police chiefs were placed on the wooden
coffins as family members wept.
Police have said their initial investigations show the attack, claimed
by the Pakistani Taliban, was carried out by a suicide bomber.
Lahore has been hit by significant militant attacks in Pakistan's more
than decade-long war on extremism, but they have been less frequent in recent
years.
The last major blast in the city was in March last year, when 75 were
killed and hundreds injured in a bomb targeting Christians celebrating Easter
Sunday in a park.
But the country was also hit by a wave of attacks in February this year,
including a bomb that killed 14 people in Lahore.
In April a further seven were killed in an attack in the city targeting
a team that was carrying out the country's long overdue census.
After years of spiralling insecurity, the powerful army launched a
crackdown on militancy in the wake of a brutal attack on a school in late 2014.
More than 150 people, most of them children, died in the Taliban-led
assault in the north-western city of Peshawar the country's deadliest ever
single attack.
It shook a country already grimly accustomed to atrocities and prompted
the military to step up operations in the tribal areas, where militants had
previously operated with impunity.
The country has seen a dramatic improvement
in security since, though groups such as the Pakistani Taliban retain the
ability to carry out spectacular attacks.
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