Pakistan is in the process of implementing a National Action Plan to fight terrorism in the country, and the blast came on the same day as Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to Karachi 500 kilometers away.. A bomb blast ripped through a Shiite mosque in Sindh province’s Shikarpur district in Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 20 people.
Explosion After the Prayers:
The explosion occurred immediately after the Friday prayers at the Karbala Maula Imambargah in Lakhi Dar area, bringing down the roof of the mosque, and killing more than a dozen people while wounding 55 others, Dawn reported.
“It was a big explosion inside the Imambargah and was set off with a remote device. The intensity of the blast led to the roof of the make-shift building caving in completely which has led to many deaths,” senior police official Abdullah Mehr told AFP.
“The area is scattered with blood and flesh and it smells of burnt meat, people are screaming at each other… it is chaos,” a witness told AFP.
Suicide Bombing Attack in Pakisthan:
Reports suggest the blast was a suicide bombing attack; it comes weeks after a blast at a Shiite mosque in Rawalpindi killed scores earlier this month.
Dr. Shaukat Ali Memon, who heads the hospital in Shikarpur where the dead were brought, told Pakistani television that 50 people, many severely wounded, were also brought to the hospital.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Sunni Muslim extremists have often targeted religious institutions of Shiites, whom they do not consider to be true Muslims.
Local media reports suggest that the blast could have been a suicide attack, but police are investigating. It is not yet clear who carried out the attack but Sunni militant groups have targeted the Shia minority in the past. A number of people were trapped after the roof of the mosque collapsed due to the force of the explosion, local media said. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has condemned the incident and ordered an immediate inquiry.
The attack came as Mr Sharif visited the city of Karachi, the capital of Singh province.