The death toll from a suicide bombing targeting a public gathering of Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam-F in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bajaur district has risen to 54, senior government and police officials said.

The blast occurred on Sunday afternoon at Shandy Morr in the outskirts of Khar city which is the district headquarters of Bajaur.

Inspector General of Police in KP Akhtar Hayat Khan told Aaj News that the police have found the remains of the suicide bomber, while further investigations were under way.

District Headquarters Hospital Bajaur Medical Officer Doctor Liaquat Ali said Sunday evening that at least 40 people had died and 115 had been injured. The death toll continued to rise during the night and KP police said in a statement on Monday morning that at least 54 had been killed.

Dr Ali said at least 65 of the injured were in critical condition. Pakistan Army airlifted several people to hospitals in Peshawar.

More than 30 were moved to the hospitals in Timargara, sid Dr Ali.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s JUI-F party was holding a workers’ convention in preparation for the general election expected later this year and a large number of supporters had gathered.

“A senior leader from the party was due to address the ceremony, but before his arrival a bomb explosion took place,” IG Akhtar Hayat told AFP.

Senior leader among the dead

Deputy Secretary Information JUI-F for Fata Khalid Jan Dawar confirmed that the blast occurred during the workers’ convention and JUI-F Khar’s head Molana Ziaullah Jan was among the dead.

Police and Rescue 1122 rushed to the blast site and started moving the wounded and the dead to the hospital. An emergency has been declared in the district hospital Khar.

Inspector General of Frontier Corps Major General Noor Wali Khan arrived in Bajaur to ensure rescue operations and immediate treatment of the injured.

The Pak Army also participated in the relief efforts as 10 critically injured were airlifted to Peshawar in Army helicopters. Additionally, 12 severely wounded individuals were transferred to Peshawar from Bajaur Scouts Hospital by the security forces.

The security forces are also among those donating blood for the wounded.

JUI-F spokesperson termed the explosion an “attack on humanity.” Maulana Fazlur Rehman appealed to the supporters to remain calm as he expressed utmost grief over the loss of life.

Fazlur Rehman urged the provincial government to provide medical treatment to the injured.

Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, another senior leader said the JUI-F is a peaceful political party which never believed in violence.

He said the peace in the country was being destroyed under a plan.

Haider urged the party’s volunteers to rush to the hospital for blood donations.

“It is an attack against every Pakistani, not only against the JUI-F,” said Falur Rehman’s son Maulana Asad Mahmood.

He demanded that the wounded must be air-carried to hospitals in Peshawar, located around 225 kilometres from Khar.

The JUI-F lost its biggest asset in the Bajaur blast, party’s Senator Maulana Attaur Rehman said on Sunday as he urged workers to reach hospitals for blood donation.

Condemnation

The political fraternity, the president, and the prime minister condemned the blast.

The attack on political parties showed that the enemy was against the democratic process in Pakistan, Prime Minister Shehbaz tweeted.

“Those responsible will be identified and punished,” he said and added that the Pakistani nation and law enforcement agencies would never allow such cowardly tactics of the enemy to succeed.

The premier telephoned the JUI-F chief and offered his condolences over the loss of lives. He also asked about the details of the incident. PM Shehbaz has also spoken to the interim chief minister, chief secretary and IGP on the telephone and sought a report on the blast. “I have also directed them to bring the injured to the hospital with the best medical facilities and a helicopter.”

President Arif Alvi “strongly” condemned the blast in Bajaur. He expressed deep grief and sorrow over the loss of precious lives in the explosion.

The president expressed his condolences to the families of the deceased and prayed for forgiveness. He prayed for the speedy recovery of the injured.

“Saddened to learn of the blast in Bajaur, which took over 40 precious lives while injuring 150 other. My condolences and thoughts go to the families of the victims,” the PTI chief tweeted.

He was of the view that the rise in terror incidents across Pakistan particularly in KP, called for an urgent need to reconsider the country’s “priorities”.

“Those in power must shift their focus from political engineering to directing state’s efforts’ & resources towards countering terrorism. Pakistan cannot afford another wave of terrorism,” he said.

Former president Asif Ali Zardari and Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also condemned the blast.

Zardari and Bilawal offered their condolences to Fazl on the martyrdom of workers. “Terrorists are everyone’s enemy,” he said.

The government should bring the sponsors of terrorists to justice, Bilawal said and called for eliminating the terrorist planners.

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah said that the “cowardly acts” of terrorists cannot dampen the country’s spirits.

“We will kill a handful of terrorist elements soon. The anti-national elements want to spread chaos, the perpetrators of the incident will be brought to justice,” he tweeted and added that report of the incident has been called for.

The EU on Monday called a deadly weekend suicide blast at an Islamist political gathering in Pakistan “an attempt to weaken democracy”.

The explosion on Sunday that killed at least 44 people at a gathering of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-F party was “a terrible attack” that sought “to instil terror,” a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on social media.

Recent terror attacks in KP

On July 19, a bomb explosion in the Hayatabad area of Peshawar injured at least eight people.

More than 650 terror attacks were reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa between June 2022 and June 2023, according to KP Police data. There were 382 gun attacks, 107 hand-grenade attacks, 145 bomb attacks using improvised explosive devices (IEDs), 15 rocket attacks, and at least 14 suicide bombings.

Militants have also been active in KP and Balochistan. They have stepped up attacks since revoking a ceasefire agreement with the government in late 2022, including the bombing of a mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar that killed more than 100 people earlier this year.

Pakistan, especially Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has seen an uptick in terrorist attacks since the end of a shaky ceasefire agreed with the outlawed TTP.

The banned group, a separate entity from its ideological twin the Afghan Taliban, has been responsible for hundreds of attacks and thousands of deaths since emerging in 2007.

“Militants target police as they are a soft and a prime target,” Moazzam Jah Ansari, the KP Police inspector general, told Aaj News in February after the Peshawar mosque blast. He had explained that policemen were easily identifiable because of their rank, uniform, and mobile van.

With input from news agencies.