ISLAMABAD, 11 January 2008 — A suicide bomber killed at least 22 police officers and four civilians outside the Lahore High Court yesterday.
The bombing, which comes just two weeks after the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, ripped through a busy square in the city center as dozens of riot police gathered ahead of an anti-government protest by lawyers.
Up to 60 people, mainly police officers, were rushed to hospital. Dead police officers, dressed in full riot gear with protective vests and helmets, were seen lying where they had fallen. A dead horse, still attached to a vendor’s cart, lay nearby.
“Twenty-two policemen died in the attack, six are critically wounded... Around 35 have minor injuries,” Lahore police chief Malik Iqbal told reporters. It was the first suicide bombing in Lahore, a relatively prosperous and secure city of about seven million people in Punjab province, since the wave of attacks began last year.
Police constable Jameel Ahmed told local TV channels that the attacker was a man aged around 25, who had arrived outside the court on a motorbike. It is said that the bomber approached a police picket, was signaled to stop and then triggered a device packed with ball bearings.
“It was a very loud blast. I was one of the first who rushed out of the court and I saw a man bleeding from his nose and mouth. He died minutes later,” said lawyer Khurram Latif Khosa. “I saw about 50 to 60 injured police, bleeding, scattered everywhere. They were asking for water. There were body parts on the ground.”
A wounded officer with his clothes blown off by the force of the blast lay in the street screaming for help as security forces scrambled to cordon off the area. Television pictures showed wounded policemen being hauled onto stretchers and taken away by ambulance. Police caps, boots and riot shields littered the road.
A security official said the head of a man with shoulder-length hair and a short beard, suspected to be the bomber, had been recovered.
After visiting the blast site, Inspector General of Punjab Police Nasim Ahmed told reporters that the bomber’s target was the police force. “Today’s bombing was to demoralize the Punjab police, but it will not. They have given their lives while performing their duty.”
Mohammad Arshad, an 18-year-old clerk working in a lawyer’s office across the road, said he saw blood and bits of flesh sticking to the broken windows of his building.
Information Minister Nisar Memon blamed the attack on a terrorist campaign to disrupt elections and derail democracy. He told state television that the election would be held as scheduled.
President Pervez Musharraf and caretaker Prime Minister Mohammedmian Soomro condemned the attack and ordered authorities to hunt down the perpetrators. “Such elements are not believers in any religion or in any human ethics,” said Soomro.
Critics of the government, however, blamed Musharraf for the recent spate of suicide bombings. “It’s not only that people feel that (the government) is not doing enough... There is also a feeling that the government machinery is maybe somewhere connected to all this,” said popular human rights activist Asma Jahangir.
“It looks like the government wants to avoid general elections through such means,” said Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leader Zafar Ali Shah.
“The rulers have failed to maintain law and order in the country or a conspiracy is being hatched to avert polls,” said Liyaquat Baloch, leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami.
The pulse of Pakistani politics beats strongest in Lahore, a city that is home to many of the country’s elite and families of army officers. Punjab is Pakistan’s most populous and richest province.
— Additional input from agencies
