Several thousand people were marking the 942nd anniversary of the death of the saint Ahmad Sultan, better known as Sakhi Sarwar, at his shrine in the Dera Ghazi Khan district of Punjab province when the bombers struck, government administrator Iftikhar Sahu said.
He said one of the attackers namely Fida Hussain was arrested after his explosive vest partially detonated.
He was arrested along with a fourth militant who was seized before the attack. Sahu said most of the injured were shifted to the district hospital in Dera Ghazi Khan.
Taleban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan called a Western news agency to claim responsibility for the assault.
The attack ended a months-long respite in a relentless militant campaign against the shrines founded by ancient adherents of Sufism.
Member of National Assembly Awais Leghari said most of the disciples of Sakhi Sarwar in the front yard were killed in the first explosion. “Their blown up limbs were obstructing the way of rescue teams to reach the injured in other portions of the shrine,” he said.
Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani strongly condemned the blast and directed the law enforcement agencies to investigate the incident and arrest those responsible.
“It was a huge blast. People were running in panic,” Fida Bakhsh, 42, a vendor outside the shrine, told the Associated Press. “It was horrible. We were running over bodies and blood.” Nineteen men, 14 women and nine children were killed, emergency coordinator Natiq Hayat said. Twenty of the wounded were in critical condition, he said.
From one-room tombs in small villages to large complexes in major cities, Sufi shrines are visited by millions of Pakistanis.
According to the AP, a stampede followed the bombings, but it was not immediately clear if that caused any casualties.
