XAVIER P WILLIAM, of BosNewsLife, reports (with additional reporting by DAVID ADAMS)…
BosNewsLife (with Sight’s DAVID ADAMS)
Christians were among those searching for loved ones on Monday, after a suicide bomber ripped through the laughter of children killing at least 72 people and injuring more than 350 in a park in Lahore where the Christian community was celebrating Easter.
“My whole world has ended, ” said Mary John, a mother of three who was in tears while looking for her children following Sunday’s bombing in Lahore’s Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, near children’s rides and a car park. “My children insisted to come to the park to enjoy themselves, now I cannot find them, I have lost everything.”
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SCENE OF DEVASTATION: An image taken in the aftermath of the attack in Lahore in which at least 63 people died. PICTURE: BosNewsLife “My whole world has ended. My children insisted to come to the park to enjoy themselves, now I cannot find them, I have lost everything.”– Mary John, a mother of three who was in tears while looking for her children following Sunday’s blast in Lahore’s Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park. |
John Masih a young man who was at the park with his family: “There was blood and bodies everywhere, it was devastating, I almost fainted.”
Among those who died is a family of seven who arrived in Lahore from Sanghar in southeast Pakistan, BosNewsLife learned. Eight teenagers from Youhanabad area in Lahore were also among the deceased.
“A large number of people, majority of them women and children, were present in Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park in Lahore when the suicide bomber blew himself up,” confirmed Lahore Police Chief Haider Ashraf.
It is believed many families were leaving the park when the bomb went off in the city, Pakistan’s second-largest and the historic home of Christianity in the country.
Mustansar Feroz, the police superintendent for the area in which the park is located, said most of the dead and injured were women and children. The victims included both Christians and Muslims. Police officials said they had recovered the body of the suicide bomber who seemed between 25 and 30 years old.
A splinter group of the Islamic militant Pakistani Taliban, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaatul Ahrar (TTP-JA), headed by Maulvi Omar Khalid Khurasani, claimed responsibility for the suicide attack in Lahore, BosNewsLife reported earlier. A spokesman for the group has claimed that Christians were the target of the attack.
“Experts say nearly 20 kilograms of explosives were used in the blast. There were four attackers, three ran away and one exploded himself, ” Ashraf said. He added there was an unusual high number of people in the park due to the weekend and Easter, including many Christians.
Troops were deployed at the scene, but that was of little comfort for survivors amid reports that all hospitals in Lahore faced a tragic situation due to a shortage of beds. Many injured people were treated on the floors.
Christian leaders and other religious figures have condemned “the brutality” and visited the injured at the local Services hospital and Jinnah hospital. They were also involved in arranging blood donations and vowed to stand united against extremism.
The Christian aid and advocacy group Life For All Pakistan said in a statement to BosNewsLife that “Religious intolerance, sectarian violence and blatant terrorism is destroying the very core of our social fabric.”
In the statement, the group said that in “a plural Islamic Society, which is what we must aspire and strive to become, there is no place for intolerance, violence and appeasement of extremist groups who are trying to make our nation hostage to their obscurantist ideology”.
However the group warned: “Make no mistake, the Pakistani military is fighting a decisive battle to crush them. We know their days are numbered and Pakistan’s better days are ahead of us.” It urged Pakistanis to “how resolve in fighting and crushing these extremists and bringing back peace and stability to our beloved country.”
Yet, the latest blast in what is Pakistan’s Punjab province underscored concerns among minority Christians in Pakistan who have faced deadly bombings and attacks in the past.
Thousands have fled Pakistan in recent years, including to Thailand.
Punjab Chief Minister Shabaz Sharif later announced a three-day mourning in the province.
The attack has drawn swift condemnation from Christian leaders around the world.
World Council of Church general secretary, Rev Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, said the attack was “particularly shocking”, thanks to what “seems to have been a clear intention deliberately to target young children who were simply enjoying themselves in the freedom of the park” and the timing of the attack which “also appears to have been intended to strike against Pakistan’s vulnerable Christian minority on one of the most sacred days in the Christian calendar”.
“In the face of this brutality, the human family, all people of faith and of good will, must stand together to recommit to respecting and caring for one another, to protecting one another, and to preventing such violence,” he said.
As well as encouraging prayer for the victims and those close to them, Rev Dr Tveit also called on the government and authorities of Pakistan to “do more to protect all people in Pakistan, whether Christians, Muslims, or of any other religion or belief, from the violence perpetrated by such extremist sectarian criminals”.
Pope Francis also condemned the attack, calling it “reprehensible”. “I repeat, once again, that violence and murderous hatred lead only to pain and destruction; respect and fraternity are the only way to achieve peace,” he said in an address on Monday, according to a Vatican Radio report.
