41 killed in blasts at sufi shrine in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Three powerful blasts ripped through a crowded Sufi shrine near Dera Ghazi Khan in Pakistan's Punbjab province on Sunday, killing at least 41 people and injuring 100 others, a government official said.

"These were suicide bombings and we arrested an attacker who could not completely detonate the explosives on his body. He was wounded," Zahid Ali, a police officer in the city told Reuters by telephone.

The first blast occurred at the main entrance of the Sakhi Sarwar Darbar located about 30 kms from Dera Ghazi Khan. The two other blasts went off inside the shrine just as a rescue operation had been launched at the site, officials said.

About 60 of the injured had been taken to hospitals in Dera Ghazi Khan, Multan and other nearby cities,the officials said. The remaining were being transported to hospitals.

They said rescue operations had been affected as the shrine was located at a distance from the main cities.

As the shrine is located on a mountain, rescue workers were facing difficulties in shifting the injured people down to the plains, officials said, adding that many critically injured people died before they reached hospital. The Taliban claimed responsibility for suicide attacks at a Sufi shrine in eastern Pakistan on Sunday in which 41 people were killed and up to several people wounded, a militant spokesman said. Earlier, TV news channels reported that a suspected suicide bomber was captured by rescue workers

Last year, there were several suicide blasts at shrines across the country.

One such attack in Lahore claimed the lives of at least 37 people and injured over 170. Shrines at Karachi and Quetta have also been targeted in the past.