At least 3 killed, 23 injured in blast in eastern Pakistan

Islamabad, Jun 23 (EFE).- At least three people were killed and 23 injured on Wednesday in a bomb attack in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore, with the explosion targeting security forces guarding the house of a well-known Islamist leader.

The attack took place in the morning near a security checkpost in the Johar area of the city, capital of the Punjab province, when a massive explosion shattered glass panes in nearby buildings and could be heard even kilometers away.

“In the blast 3 people were martyred and 23 were injured. (..) The target was security forces,” Punjab police chief Inam Ghani said in a press conference.

One of the injured persons is in a critical condition.

Ghani said that the bomb had been placed inside a car, although it has not been determined whether it was a suicide bombing or carried out through an improvised explosive device (IED).

The checkpost is situated meters away from the house of Islamist leader Hafiz Saeed, named by the United States and India as the mastermind of the 2008 serial bombings in the Indian city of Mumbai, in which 166 people had been killed.

In 2020, Saeed had been sentenced to three five-year prison terms on terror financing charges, which he has been serving simultaneously in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat prison.

Ghani suggested that foreign intelligence agencies could be behind the attack.

Terror attacks have considerably reduced in Pakistan in recent years.

In one of the major incidents in recent times, in April the Pakistani Taliban killed five people and injured 15 at a luxury hotel in Quetta in an attempt to target the Chinese ambassador to Pakistan, who escaped the attack.