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DERA GHAZI KHAN

Forty-six devotees were killed and over 90 injured in two suicide blasts at Darbar Sakhi Sarwar, some 35 kilometres from here, on Sunday. The Urs celebrations at the Darbar are in progress these days. The rescue teams faced difficulties due to narrow passages and congested localities.

The dead included four children and eight women, while the locals also arrested a suspected suicide bomber, who was attempting to explode his jacket. According to sources, the suspect was arrested with a suicide jacket in his possession. He was handed over to the local police. The police shifted the arrested young suicide bomber to an undisclosed location for interrogation. Eyewitnesses and the police told this scribe that the officials of the border military police shot at the suicide bomber and rendered him unable to blow himself up.

As per the local residents and eyewitnesses, no strict security measures were in place, and no security personnel were among the killed or injured. The suicide bomber blew himself up at the main gate of Darbar Hazrat Sakhi Sarwar, followed by another blast within three minutes, when thousands of devotees were present at the Darbar.

Rescue 1122 official Dr Natiq Hayat said the death toll was over 30. Ambulances from Multan, Muzaffargarh, Layyah and Rajanpur were shifting the dead and injured to the emergency wards of the District Headquarters Hospital, DG Khan.

Angry protesters attacked the police officials as they reached late at the blast site and shouted slogans against the authorities for poor security arrangements. The devotees also attacked the SHO Sakhi Sarwar police station, Zahid Hussain, on his failure to make foolproof security arrangements.

Sources said the unknown assailants had warned the Darbar administration of dire consequences if the traditional dhamaal was not stopped at the Darbar during the annual Urs.

The DG Khan DPO told The News that strict security measures were taken and walkthrough gates were installed, as per the security plan. He said it was a suicide blast while the attempt for the second suicide blast was foiled and the accused had been arrested.

Agencies add: The blasts took place outside the shrine of the 13th Century Sufi saint Ahmed Sultan, popularly known as Sakhi Sarwar.

“We have recovered 41 bodies so far,” said an officer, Zahid Hussain Shah, adding that more than 70 were wounded. “Both were suicide attackers, they came on foot and blew themselves up when police on duty stopped them,” he said.

The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attacks, a militant spokesman said. “Our men carried out these attacks and we will carry out more in retaliation for government operations against our people in the northwest,” Ehsanullah Ehsan told Reuters by telephone from undisclosed location.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and President Asif Zardari have strongly condemned the bomb blast and loss of life. Zardari asked the officials concerned to take care of the injured. He expressed condolences with the affected families.

MOSCOW – Female suicide bombers blew themselves up Monday in twin attacks on Moscow subway stations packed with rush-hour passengers, killing at least 38 people and wounding more than 60, officials said. The carnage blamed on rebels from the Caucasus region follows the killings of several high-profile Islamic militant leaders there.

The blasts come six years after Islamic separatists from the southern Russian region carried out a pair of deadly Moscow subway strikes and raise concerns that the war has once again come to the capital, amid militants’ warnings of a renewed determination to push their fight.