At least 45 people were killed and scores of others were wounded when suicide bomber ripped through the crowded Shah Noorani Shrine in Hub town of Balochistan’s Khuzdar District on Saturday evening, police said .
The blast hit a crowd of worshippers participating in a ceremony at the shrine of Sufi saint Shah Noorani in Khuzdar district, some 760 kilometres (472 miles) south of provincial capital Quetta.
The death toll is feared to go up as rescuers are struggling to reach the shrine which is located in a remote area.
Children and women are among the victims.
Balochistan Home Minister Sarfraz Bugti confirmed the death of 45 including women and children.
SSP Lasbela Jafar Khan while talking to media said “We have information about the death of at least 30 people and over 100 are feared injured,”
“Rescue operation has been launched to shift the injured to nearby hospitals,” he said.
According to an eyewitnesses, the blast took place during dhamal, a devotional dance session, which is held daily before dusk, when the blast occurred. He said that some 500 people were present inside the shrine when the blast took place.
Rangers are taking a convoy of medical workers from Karachi, a three-hour drive from the blast site.
DC Lasbela Zulfiqar Shah said that ambulances were dispatched to the area to help those injured in the attack.
“Although it is not in the jurisdiction of Lasbela, we have sent rescue teams,” he said.
However, Edhi sources claim that 15 people perished in the blast.
Tariq Mengal, Additional Deputy Commissioner, said that rescue operation was launched in the area.
Balochistan Home Minister Sarfraz Bugti said that his government was focused on the rescue operation for the time being. “We cannot use rescue helicopter due to darkness in the area,” he said.
National Party Chairman Mir Hasil Bazenjo said that the shrine was located in a remote area and that it could at least seven years to shift the injured to hospitals in Karachi.
No-one has claimed responsibility for the bombing, which follows the killing of Amjad Sabri, a renowned Sufi singer, by two gunmen in Karachi in June.
Some observers have said that Sabri may have been assassinated because he was a high-profile Sufi.
Sufism, a mystic Islamic order that believes in living saints, worships through music, and is viewed as heretical by some hardline groups including the Taliban.
Balochistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, has oil and gas resources but is afflicted by Islamist militancy, sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims and a separatist insurgency.
Local militants claimed to have worked with the Islamic State group to attack a police academy in Balochistan last month, killing 61 people in the deadliest assault on a security installation in Pakistan’s history.
In August, a suicide bombing at a Quetta hospital claimed by the Islamic State group and a faction of the Pakistani Taliban killed 73 people.
