Relatives gather inside a ward of bomb blast victims at a hospital in Bajaur district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province on July 31, 2023. (Photo by Abdul MAJEED / AFP)
Blood-stained chairs, scattered ball bearings and shoes shed by the dead, wounded and panicked bore testimony Monday to the carnage caused by a suicide bombing at a Pakistan political event.
At least 47 people were killed and more than 100 wounded on Sunday when a blast ripped through a gathering of Islamic Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-F (JUI-F) party members in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The marquee hoisted in the town of Khar lay mangled and charred the morning after the explosion, partly collapsed onto blood-soaked carpets with around 400 upended red chairs strewn about.
“Upon arriving at the scene, I was confronted with a devastating sight,” Khar resident Fazal Aman, 29, told AFP on Monday.
“Lifeless bodies scattered on the ground while people cried out for help.”
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Party paraphernalia, including hats and scarves in JUI-F’s black-and-white branding, were abandoned and trampled into the dusty ground, some flecked with dried blood.
The first funerals for the victims got underway on Monday, including for a pair of cousins aged 16 and 17 where young boys wept by coffins.
“These two were very serious and down-to-earth individuals in our family,” said 24-year-old shopkeeper Najeeb Ullah. “This is a great injustice on our land.”
Remnants of human flesh and hair could be seen as far as 30 metres (100 feet) from a shattered stage, the apparent epicentre of the blast near Khar’s main bazaar.
Gulistan Khan, a 40-year-old farmer being treated at a nearby hospital, said he was in the third row when the bomb detonated as local JUI-F leaders arrived to crowds chanting slogans.
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“I was thrown backwards as if lifted off the ground,” he said.
“The blast was powerful. Flames coming out were very high so I couldn’t see anything.”
A mound of about 40 sandals and shoes had been piled in the shade behind a cordon of yellow police tape as zebra-striped JUI-F flags fluttered in the breeze.
Investigators in rubber gloves and facemasks picked through the scene on Monday morning, one using a trowel to scoop up a sample from a dark patch on the floor of the stage.
The site was swarmed by security forces carrying assault rifles and surrounding roads were peppered with police checkpoints.
Regional counter-terrorism deputy inspector general Sohail Khalid told AFP the bomber used around 40 kilograms (90 pounds) of explosives, bound up with ball bearings to cause maximum carnage.
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No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack but the local chapter of the Islamic State group has recently targeted JUI-F, a key government coalition partner led by a firebrand cleric.
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