Islamabad: Dozens of children and mothers wereamong the victims of the Easter suicide bombing in a Lahore public park in which at least 72 people have been killed.
A breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack in Gulshan Iqbal Park.
Even though the group said it had deliberately targeted Christians “celebrating Easter”, it has started to emerge that most of those killed in Lahore were Muslims.
Of the dead, 14 have been identified as Christians, according to Lahore Police Superintendent Mohammed Iqbal. Another 12 bodies have not yet been identified, he said.
Pakistani authorities have launched a hunt for those behind the bombing – the deadliest on Pakistan soil since the Peshawar school massacre in December 2010 in which 134 children were slaughtered.
Some reports have placed the number of children killed on Sunday at 29. Many of those injured are in a serious condition, leading to fears the death toll could rise still further.
Punjab’s chief minister, Shahbaz Sharif, has announced three days of mourning and pledged to bring the perpetrators to justice.
The explosion took place near the main gate of the park, close to the swings and rides of the children’s play area.
Mohammad Ali, a student who lives nearby, said he saw many children killed.
“I saw body parts everywhere, especially those of young children,” he told The Guardian.
“It was quite haunting, as many of the children’s rides were still operating, while there were dead bodies lying all around them.”
Parents were seen searching for their children among the debris in the aftermath of the blast.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter group of the Taliban, has been waging an insurgency in Pakistan in affiliation with the Taliban in Afghanistan, where militants have been trying to regain power since being toppled by the US and allies in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks.
Yet Lahore has seen relatively few attacks compared to areas close to the Afghan border.
“It was the weekend so there were a large number of families there, women and children were in the park,” one eyewitness told The Telegraph.
The Taliban’s leadership has reportedly appeared fractured before, with an attack on a Pakistani school in January denied by the group’s official spokesperson but confirmed by another.
At the time, a faction commander said the group was targeting youngsters who were being “prepared” for government service and would continue to target education institutions.
After this most recent attack on families that killed 72 people and injured about 300, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has also said it will continue its insurgency.
“This is a message to the Pakistani prime minister that we have arrived in Punjab,” a spokesman said.
“We are in a war-like situation and there is always a general threat, but no specific threat alert was received for this place,” he added.
Pakistan’s army chief, General Raheel Sharif, has convened an emergency meeting of the country’s intelligence agencies to begin to track down those responsible for the attacks.
Salman Rafiq, a health adviser to the Punjab government, urged people to donate blood, saying many of the wounded are in a critical condition.