The bomber managed to enter the park and blew himself up near the kids’ playing area where kids were on the swings.
At least 70 people were killed in a suicide attack in Gulshan-i-Iqbal Park of Allama Iqbal Town, Lahore Pakistan on Sunday evening, rescue sources said. Hospital sources added that over 250 were injured.
The attack was claimed by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan Jamaatul Ahrar.
Iqbal Town Superintendent Police Dr Muhammad Iqbal confirmed this was a suicide attack that took place at a children’s park, where a large number of families, especially women and children, were present.
The area is a renowned residential area of Lahore. The blast was just outside the exit gate and a few feet (metres) away from the children’s swings.
DCO Captain (Retd) Muhammad Usman said the head of the suicide bomber was recovered. Ball bearings were also found at the site.
Eye witnesses said there were pools of blood and scattered body parts spread across the site of the attack.Witnesses said they could hear children screaming as people carried the injured in their arms, while frantic relatives searched for loved ones in nightmarish scenes at the park near the centre of the city.
“We carried out the Lahore attack as Christians are our target,” Ehansullah Ehsan, spokesman for the hardline Jamaat-ul-Ahrar faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location. He said the group would carry out more such attacks, vowing to target schools and colleges alongside government and military interests.
Religion based isms continue to kill in cold blood.
Sources : Dunya news TV, The Dawn , AFP, @ZeshanMalick
The more innocent the victims the more terror is created. The killers will be laughing and cheering tonight. Big success. (I wonder what religion they belong to.)
I…no. Children. Children and ball bearing shrapnel. Your god is a fucking monster
Yes. They made their god in their image.
The more I read the more it becomes clear that Islam has bigger problem than Christianity did with its book. The Bible is misogynistic, gives its seal of approval upon slavery, and a whole laundry list of other crimes against humanity, but those rough spots are not central to being Christian. As written in the official versions the one person we are supposed to emulate wasn’t overtly hateful to women, didn’t have any slaves, didn’t spend much time making war or imposing his religion upon others. Yes, there was that thing with the bankers, but really, who hasn’t wanted to thrash banker?
Christianity also becomes more mellow simply because it is old, and has had considerable amounts of compromise imposed upon it by factional infighting and reformation. The text itself doesn’t reference itself, or any particular interpretation, as perfect.
On the other hand we have Islam. The Koran is blatantly and uncompromisingly clear, it declares itself perfect and sets Mohammad up as the exemplar. You are to emulate Mohammad, presumably right down to the women as trade property, rape of a nine year old girls, slavery, conversion by force, no individual rights or right to conscience, and making war on all who are not true Muslims as defined in this 7th century document.
Yes, there are moderate Muslims who don’t make war, respect women, don’t advocate slavery and respect individual rights and rights to conscience but they are all ignoring parts of the Koran. Those are all innovations on the original intent and are clearly in violation of original intent.
The one organization that fully and completely embraces the Koran as written is ISIS. In line with this they wish to bring their society, and if possible the world, back to the standards of the time when the Koran was written, the 7th century.
Perhaps there will be a reform Islam that simply redacts or rewrites the Koran to be compatible with a world of individual rights and conscience. I would expect that there would be a struggle. The Koran is evil incarnate as only something designed to keep the human race as it was 1300 years ago. It does not suggest backwardness, it demands it. Quite literally Muslims can be good people and respected members of society only to the extent they ignore the teachings in the Koran.
The problem I have with Islam more than any other region I know is that the foundation of their religion, the Koran, explicitly underwrites, excuses, demands a 7th century world view and I am not going back there. Sorry, my respect for others and their beliefs cannot stretch far enough to embrace Islam as written. We desperately need a reform Koran.
At some time in the future humanity may be able to deal creatively with the Koran like we do with Chick tracts. Until then there will always be a part of Islam at was with the last 1300 years of human progress.
In the new testament, Jesus does touch on slavery several times, and he tacitly approves of it, and outright (implicitly) endorses human slavery as part of a metaphor as part of a passage to make a separate point. Jesus is arguably pro-slavery, but it wasn’t a major plank of his platform.
Of course, all of this is according to what Jesus said as recorded by the largely-fictional Christian bible.