Taliban’s Easter suicide bombing rips through a children’s park

On Sunday (local time), a suicide bombing suspected to have been perpetrated by Taliban took place at a children’s play area in Lahore, the state of Punjab, which is the North-eastern part of Pakistan, leaving at least 72 dead and some 400 wounded who were celebrating Easter.

The Associated Press reported that at the gate of the Gulshan Iqbal Park, a terrorist committed suicide bombing at about 6:40 p.m., and most of the victims were identified as children and women. It was a “soft-target terrorist attack” aimed at innocent civilians. The park was frequented by local residents who took their children for rides, and the damage was huge for a number of Christians who visited their en masses to celebrate Easter Sunday.

During a phone call interview with the Express Tribune, Ehansullah Ehsan, spokesperson for the hardline Jamaat-ul-Ahrar faction of Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) said that their attack targeted Christians celebrating Easter and the group will carry out more such attacks. Of the 197 million Pakistani population, 97 percent is Islamic, and only 1.6 percent is Catholics and Protestants.

The Vatican condemned the terrorist attack, calling it “fanatic violence targeted at the members of Christian minorities.”

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