At least 52 Pakistanis have died and dozens more were injured following a suspected suicide bombing on Friday, at a procession marking the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, close to a mosque in Pakistan’s Balochistan province.
According to officials, many of those injured are understood to be in a critical condition.
The explosion is being presumed to have been a suicide attack. Local officials claimed that a senior police officer, Mohammad Nawaz, who died in the blast, was the primary target of the attack.
Balochistan, the largest province in Pakistan by area, has seen several flashpoints in recent months following a decades-long insurgency, waged by separatists who accuse Islamabad of unfairly exploiting the province’s resources.
So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack. The Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a collective of various Sunni Islamist militant groups, has denied any involvement.
There has been an increase in militant attacks in Pakistan’s west ahead of national elections scheduled to take place in January 2024.
Earlier this month, at least 11 people died in another bombing in Balochistan.
At least 40 Pakistanis were killed in a July suicide attack at a political party gathering in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
According to the region’s inspector general, authorities in Karachi, Pakistan’s most populous city some 600km from Mastung, have been ordered to increase security and remain on high alert.
Officials had asked police to be wary of militants targeting gatherings celebrating the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, Mawlid an-Nabi, a national holiday which features day-long celebrations and the distribution of free meals.
Pakistan’s caretaker interior minister, Sarfraz Bugti, denounced the bombing as a “heinous act.”
Meanwhile, reports also indicate that there was a second explosion on Friday at a mosque near the city of Peshwar in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The number of casualties remains unclear, but authorities say that some victims could be trapped under rubble. Officials said the capacity of the mosque is 40 to 50 people.
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