Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Blast kills 4 near shrine in Pakistan: police

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Islamabad, Oct 25, IRNA -- A bomb blast outside a shrine killed at least four people in central Pakistan Monday morning, police and witnesses said.

The bomb was attached to a bicycle and exploded near of the gates of the crowded shrine at the city of Pak Patan in Punjab province, regional police officer Amjad Javed Salimi said.

The blast at Baba Farid Ganjshakar, a 12th-century Sufi preacher and saint of the Chishti Order of South Asia, also injured 13 people.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack.

Taliban militants had claimed responsibility for two earlier bomb attacks on shrine in Karachi and Lahore.

Salimi said that two men arrived at a motorcycle and parked it the eastern gate of the shrine. He said that the men, having small beard, failed to enter the shrine due to security.

Both fled after the blast and the police chief said a search operation was launched to arrest them.

Doctors said that 13 inured, one in critical condition, were admitted in the local hospital. Doctors said that women are among those killed and injured.

The Monday's blast is the third major attack on a shrine in Pakistan over the past four months.

Two suicide bombers struck Datta Darbar Shrine in Lahore on July 1, killing 40 people and injuring over 170 others.