Alwaght- A deadly blast hit the Lahore city of Pakistan earlier this evening leaving at least 70 dead and nearly 340 others wounded.
The blast occurred in Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, in Iqbal Town area of Lahore a few meters away from the children's swings.
Most of the victims of the bomb attack at the busy park on Sunday evening were women and children enjoying an Easter weekend outing.
"We must bring the killers of our innocent brothers, sisters and children to justice and will never allow these savage inhumans to over-run our life and liberty," military spokesman Asim Bajwa said in a post on Twitter.
The dead bodies of the victims as well as the injured individuals were shifted to the nearby hospitals.
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan's (TTP) faction which calls itself Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, has claimed responsibility for the attack. Ahsanullah Ahsan, a spokesperson for the group said, “We want to send this message to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that we have entered Lahore. He can do what he wants but he won't be able to stop us. Our suicide bombers will continue these attacks.” "The target was Christians," he said.
Mustansar Feroz, police superintendent for the area in which the park is located, said most of the injured and dead were women and children.
Local police chief Haider Ashraf said the area was crowded with Christians celebrating the Easter holidays, and many families were leaving the park when the blast occurred.
Lahore is the capital city of Punjab province of Pakistan which is the country’s largest and wealthiest province. Last year, a bomb killed a popular Pakistani provincial minister and at least eight others when it destroyed the minister's home in Punjab.
Earlier in March, a bomb planted on a bus carrying government officials exploded in northern Pakistan, killing at least 15 people.
A terrorist killed 13 people on March 8 after blowing himself up outside a court in Charsadda, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, about 30km from Peshawar.
In 2014, Pakistan launched an offensive against Taliban and affiliated terrorists in North Waziristan, seeking to deprive them of safe havens from which to launch attacks in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
