Thousands of Shia Muslims today took out a procession to mourn the victims of the triple bombings that rocked this eastern Pakistani city, even as the death toll from the brazen attacks rose to 37.
Provincial authorities today announced that the paramilitary Pakistan Rangers will remain deployed in Lahore till September 15 to maintain law and order.
A pall of gloom hung over Lahore in the wake of the attacks, the latest in a series of terrorist assaults on religious minorities and shrines in the city.
Thousands of Shiite Muslims, thumping their chests and crying, mourned at funeral prayers for victims of the triple bombings.
Prominent Shia leader Allama Abbas Kamali, the head of the Jafriya Alliance, announced a three-day period of mourning.
All courts and major markets remained closed today to protest the death of innocent people. The funeral prayers of the dead were offered at Naseer Bagh amidst tight security.
A low-intensity timed device went off as the procession neared a Shia prayer hall yesterday evening. Two suicide bombers then blew themselves up among the panic-stricken marchers.
Twenty-eight people were killed instantly and nine more died later in hospital, officials said. Two more people succumbed to their injuries today.
Over 300 people were injured though many of them were sent home after being given first aid, officials said.
The local administration said paramilitary troops, which were called out last night to stop rioting by an angry mob in the wake of the blasts, would remain deployed till September 15 to avert any law and order problems.
This is the first time that the Pakistan Rangers have been deployed in Lahore to maintain law and order after a terror attack.
The Punjab government had to bank on the paramilitary troops after local police failed to control rioting.
Reacting violently to the blasts, people in the Shia procession attacked a police building, set public property and cars on fire and fought with police for nearly two hours last night.
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