LSK condemns massacre of 73 senior lawyers in Pakistan city
Pakistani nurses place candles at the site where over 70 lawyers were killed in a suicide attack at Civil Hospital in Quetta on August 9, 2016. Kenyan lawyers have condemned the attack. PHOTO | AFP
What you need to know:
- LSK described the attack in the southwestern Pakistan city of Quetta as a cowardly act perpetrated by faceless terrorists.
- Again on Thursday, a roadside bomb apparently targeting a judge injured at least 13 people.
Kenyan lawyers on Thursday condemned the recent killing of a Pakistani advocate and the subsequent suicide attack on rescuers who were rushing him to a hospital.
The Law Society of Kenya described the attack in the southwestern Pakistan city of Quetta as a cowardly act perpetrated by faceless terrorists.
On Monday, 70 lawyers were massacred in a bombing at Civil Hospital in Quetta within hours of the assassination of Balochistan Bar Association president Bilal Anwar.
Again on Thursday, a roadside bomb apparently targeting a judge injured at least 13 people in the same city, officials said, days after the attack that killed most of the city's senior lawyers.
"The bomb was planted on a bridge in the city, which went off immediately after the vehicle of an Islamic court judge passed by it," Balochistan province home secretary Akbar Harifal told AFP.
The judge, Zahoor Shehwani, survived, he added, but the blast hit his security escort vehicle, injuring four police officers and nine passers-by.
Hamid Shakeel, a senior local police official, confirmed the attack and the casualties.
Analysts said Monday's attack had left a vacuum in the close-knit legal community, which is seen as a crucial force for justice in the country's most dangerous province.
Mineral-rich but desperately poor Balochistan is plagued by roiling insurgencies, hit by regular militant attacks, and run by political leaders who are widely seen as corrupt.
It is also the site of China's ambitious $46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor infrastructure project linking its western province of Xinjiang to the Arabian Sea via Pakistan.
Monday's attack was claimed by both the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA) faction of the Pakistani Taliban, and the Islamic State group, with analysts unclear on whose claim was more credible.
