Families of the victims killed in a massive suicide bombing targeting Pakistani Christians in Lahore have started burying their relatives as a nationwide three-day mourning period began.
The funerals on Monday followed the attack at a park in Pakistan's second largest city a day earlier, aimed at killing members of the Christian minority gathered on Easter Sunday.
At least 70 people were killed, with many having succumbed to their wounds on Monday. More than 300 were wounded, officials said. Most victims were women and children.
The bombing was claimed by a breakaway Taliban faction, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, that has before publicly supported the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.
Even though Sunday's bombing targeted mainly Christians, most of those killed in Lahore were Muslims, who were also in the park on Easter Sunday.
Of the dead, at least 14 have been identified as Christians, according to Lahore Police Superintendent Mohammed Iqbal. Another 12 bodies have not yet been identified, he said.
The 2.5 million Christians in Pakistan. They're discriminated against in the state's Islamic constitution, and they're terrorized under religious blasphemy laws that often serve as a front for the worst kind of repression. Those Muslims who want to come here and seek religious acceptance would do well to offer the same in their own countries.
Source: AAN
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