Mastung, Bannu blasts: PM announces day of mourning on Sunday
Death toll in Mastung suicide blast has increased to 131.
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – Pakistan will observe a day of mourning tomorrow (Sunday) to pay tributes to the martyrs of recent terrorist attacks in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The announcement to this effect was made by Prime Minister Nasirul Mulk in Islamabad today with the aim to also express grief and solidarity with the victim families. The prime minister office has also directed the interior ministry to formally issue a notification in this regard.
The announcement was made a day after a suicide blast killed 131 people at a political rally in the town of Mastung, near the Balochistan provincial capital Quetta.
The deadliest attack was the latest in a series of bombings targeting campaign events in the last week, sparking fears of more violence ahead of nationwide polls on July 25.
ANNOUNCEMENT BY BALOCHISTAN GOVERNMENT
Balochistan government has announced two-day mourning in the province over the tragic suicide bomb blast in Mastung on Friday, in which 131 people were martyred and around two hundred others injured.
Balochistan Awami Party leader Nawabzada Mir Siraj Raisani was also martyred in the explosion during a corner meeting in Darin Garh area of Mastung district.
Balochistan Awami Party has also announced three day mourning over the barbaric incident and canceled its political public meeting on Saturday.
Funeral prayers of the martyrs were offered in their ancestral areas of Mustung district last night.
THREE ATTACKS IN THREE DAYS
The attack was the deadliest since Taliban militants assaulted a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar in 2014, killing over 150 people, mostly children, and one of the deadliest in Pakistan’s long struggle with militancy.
The explosion in Mastung came hours after four people were killed and 39 injured when a bomb hidden inside a motorcycle detonated close to another politician’s convoy in Bannu, near the border with Afghanistan.
The politician -- Akram Khan Durrani, a candidate of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) party -- survived.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for that attack.
On Tuesday, a bomb claimed by the Pakistani Taliban targeted a rally by the Awami National Party (ANP) in the city of Peshawar. Local ANP leader Haroon Bilour was among the 22 killed.
The bombings come at a moment of increasing political turmoil in Pakistan as former prime minister Nawaz Sharif was arrested after arriving in the eastern city of Lahore late Friday, as he aims to energise his embattled party’s base -- injecting fresh uncertainty into the country days ahead of the polls.
(With inputs from AFP)
