KHAR, Pakistan – 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 44 people were killed and more than 100 wounded on Sunday evening 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.”
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.
Small remnants of human flesh and hair could be seen as far as 30 meters from a shattered stage, the apparent epicenter of the blast near Khar’s main bazaar.
A mound of about 40 sandals and shoes had been piled in the shade behind a yellow cordon of police tape as zebra-striped JUI-F flags fluttered in the breeze.
Investigators in rubber gloves and face masks picked through the scene on Monday morning, one using a trowel to scoop up an evidence sample from a dark patch on the floor of the stage.
The site was swarmed by security forces carrying assault rifles and the 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.
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.
Meanwhile, police combed through the bloody wreckage as Pakistan’s parliament is likely to be dissolved after it completes its term in the next two weeks, with national elections to be held by mid-November or earlier.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Pakistani Taliban—who operate in the area—have denied being behind it.
The local chapter of the jihadist Islamic State group, who have not yet commented on the attack, have in the past targeted JUI-F rallies and leaders.
The blast has raised fears Pakistan could be in for a bloody election period following months of political chaos prompted by the ousting of Imran Khan as prime minister in April last year.
JUI-F’s leader, cleric Fazl-ur-Rehman, started political life as a firebrand Islamist hardliner, and while his party continues to advocate for socially conservative policies, he has in recent years forged alliances with secular rivals.
He has operated in the past as a facilitator for talks between the government and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, a rival of the jihadist Islamic State group.
Last year, IS said it was behind attacks against religious scholars affiliated with JUI-F, which has a huge network of mosques and schools in the north and west of the country.
The jihadist group accuses the party of hypocrisy for being a religious party while supporting secular governments and the military.
While Rehman’s party never musters more than a dozen or so seats in parliament, they can be crucial in any coalition and his ability to mobilise tens of thousands of religious school students allows him to punch above his weight.
“It is important to consider why workers of a religious inclined political party could have been subjected to such bestial violence,” Dawn newspaper said in an editorial Monday.
“However ultra-conservative the JUI-F’s worldview, the party has chosen to contest power and operate within the parameters set by the Constitution of Pakistan.”
Pakistan has seen a sharp rise in militant attacks since the Afghan Taliban surged back to power in neighboring Afghanistan in 2021.
In January, a suicide bomber linked to Pakistan’s Taliban blew himself up in a mosque inside a police compound in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing more than 80 officers.
The militant assaults have been focused in regions abutting Afghanistan, and Islamabad alleges some are being planned on Afghan soil — a charge Kabul denies.
Pakistan was once plagued by almost daily bombings, but a major military clearance operation launched in 2014 in northwestern areas that were formerly Pakistani Taliban strongholds largely restored order.
The seven remote former tribal districts that border Afghanistan, of which Bajaur is one, were later brought into the legal and administrative mainstream after the passage of legislation in 2018.
Analysts say militants in the former tribal areas have become emboldened since the return of the Afghan Taliban.
The blast coincides with a visit to the country by a senior delegation of Chinese officials, including Vice Premier He Lifeng, who arrived in the capital Sunday evening.