People gather around one of the blast sites in Parachinar on Friday. PHOTO: EXPRESS
The death toll from Friday’s twin suicide bombings in Parachinar, Kurram Agency, rose to 57 as nine more people died of their wounds at different hospitals overnight.
An official of the political administration confirmed that nine more injured have succumbed to their injuries, taking the tally to 57.
Two suicide bombers, riding motorcycles, struck at busy marketplaces in Parachinar city shortly before Iftar, killing and maiming dozens of tribesmen from Shia Turi and Bangash tribes.
On Saturday, all markets remained closed to denounce the dastardly violence as the local communities announced three-day mourning. A pall of gloom hung over the entire town while volunteers collected shreds of human flesh from the blast sites.
Moving scenes were witnessed when tribesmen buried their dead on Saturday. Some families lost more than one members in the vicious bombings. Among them was a security guard of Parachinar Press Club. His two brothers went to the market to buy some food for Iftar and were killed in the blast.
Meanwhile condemnations poured in from political parties and religious organisations who called the perpetrators ‘enemies of humanity and enemies of Islam’ who killed innocent civilians shortly before Iftar.
On the other hand, addressing a joint news conference, Qaumi Markazi Anjuman leader Ali Akbar, Majlis Ulema Ahle Bait leader Ahmad Ali Roham and others, threatened to launch a protest movement against the government.
They claimed that the political administration had prior intelligence about a possible terrorist attack in the region but miserably failed to thwart it.
Twenty-one injured of the Parachinar bombings were, meanwhile, shifted from the Agency Headquarters Hospital to Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital on Saturday. Five of them were said to be in a critical condition.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 28th, 2013.
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Do you have any idea what was the final death toll from this atrocity?
It must have risen further because some of the 21 seriously injured who were jolted over an 8-hour road journey to Peshawar may not have survived that ordeal, while only the most rudimentary medical treatment was available for the 36 who were left behind