Two brides, who were getting ready for their wedding at a beauty parlour, were among 62 people killed in Monday's terror attack on a market in Lahore.
Two brides, who were getting ready for their wedding at a beauty parlour, were among 62 people killed in Monday's terror attack on a market here, even as top Pakistani police officials were still divided on the nature of the twin blasts that ripped through the commercial hub.
The toll in the blasts and subsequent fire at the Moon Market rose to 62 today as the families of eight persons who had died in the attack had buried them without taking the bodies to the city morgue, police said.
Officials had earlier put the number of dead at 54.
"The death toll now stands at 62 as the families of eight victims did not inform us about their deaths and buried them on their own," superintendent of police Shoaib Khurram said. "Soon after the attack, the families of the dead picked up their bodies."
Two brides were among the dead. "The brides were in Shamim Beauty Parlour, located on the second floor of a building that caught fire after the blasts, and all present there were burnt alive," Nazir Ahmed, who owns a video shop in the market, told PTI.
Over a dozen bodies were beyond recognition, officials said.
Meanwhile, police officials were divided over whether the blasts were caused by suicide attackers or bombs planted in the market. Soon after the attack on Monday, special superintendent of police Shafiq Ahmad Gujjar had said the heads of two suicide bombers had been found at the site. But some officials of the police department do not agree with this view.
"There is a crater at the blast site and in cases involving suicide bombers, a crater has never been found," a police official who is part of the team investigating the blasts told PTI.
He said the fire that engulfed the market could not be controlled for seven hours despite the best efforts of fire fighters.
"This indicates the presence of phosphorus," he said. "At least 15 to 17kg of phosphorus is required to cause such a devastating fire. The suicide bombers theory means that the attackers would have had to carry the chemicals along with their explosive belts," the official said.
A senior doctor of Services Hospital supported this claim of the police official.
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