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Pakistani lawyers on Tuesday mourned colleagues slain in a shocking suicide bombing the previous day at a hospital in the southwestern city of Quetta that killed 70 people, mostly lawyers.
The attack, which stunned the judicial community, also underscored concerns that militants in Pakistan are still capable of striking in the heart of the country's cities and towns — despite government claims of dismantling various terror networks.
The Pakistani bar association called for lawyers to boycott courts in an unusual strike against the attack. Schools and markets were closed in Quetta, also in protest over the attack, which was claimed by a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar militant group. Pakistan deployed extra police units outside court building. In Islamabad, lawyers lined up outside the Supreme Court under tight security to offer funeral prayers for those killed in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province.
A suicide bomber detonated his explosives' vest amid the gathering, and survivors later described scenes of panic as the blast ripped through the emergency room.
In a statement, Ahsanullah Ahsan, spokesman for the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar militant group, said its fighters killed Kasi and also dozens of lawyers gathered at the government-run Civil Hospital to mourn for their colleague.
The group has been behind several attacks in Pakistan in recent years, including a deadly March bombing on Easter Sunday in a park in the eastern city of Lahore that killed at least 70 people.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/08/09/world/asia/ap-as-pakistan.html?_r=0
The attack, which stunned the judicial community, also underscored concerns that militants in Pakistan are still capable of striking in the heart of the country's cities and towns — despite government claims of dismantling various terror networks.
The Pakistani bar association called for lawyers to boycott courts in an unusual strike against the attack. Schools and markets were closed in Quetta, also in protest over the attack, which was claimed by a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar militant group. Pakistan deployed extra police units outside court building. In Islamabad, lawyers lined up outside the Supreme Court under tight security to offer funeral prayers for those killed in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province.
A suicide bomber detonated his explosives' vest amid the gathering, and survivors later described scenes of panic as the blast ripped through the emergency room.
In a statement, Ahsanullah Ahsan, spokesman for the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar militant group, said its fighters killed Kasi and also dozens of lawyers gathered at the government-run Civil Hospital to mourn for their colleague.
The group has been behind several attacks in Pakistan in recent years, including a deadly March bombing on Easter Sunday in a park in the eastern city of Lahore that killed at least 70 people.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/08/09/world/asia/ap-as-pakistan.html?_r=0