Conflicting reports put death toll between four and eight with dozens more injured, in city that has avoided much of violence affecting rest of country

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

A fatal suicide bomb has torn through crowds on the normally placid streets of Lahore, reportedly killing several people, as the Pakistani city gears up to host one of the country’s biggest cultural events this weekend.

The bombing outside a major police compound killed at least five people on Empress Road, one of the city’s major thoroughfares, which is a short distance from the venue of the Lahore literary festival.



A Taliban splinter group called Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Jamaatul Ahrar (TTP-JA) claimed responsibility for the attack, which a spokesman said was a response to recent executions of some of their members by the Islamabad government.



“We want to make it clear to the rulers that we will take revenge for the blood of innocent Muslims – our operations will continue till an Islamic system is imposed,” the group’s spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, said in an emailed statement.



Officials believe the bomber was attempting to blast the entrance gate of the police compound, which is close to important government buildings and a shrine.



Police officials and the emergency medical charity Edhi gave conflicting numbers of victims, with the provincial home minister Shuja Khanzada claiming four civilians and one policeman had been killed, while another that 17 were injured. Edhi, which runs ambulances that quickly appear at bomb sites, said eight people had been killed.



Lahore, the affluent capital of Punjab province, has been spared much of the terrorist violence that has afflicted many other parts of the country in the last decade.



The most recent attack occurred in November at an evening military ceremony at Wagah, a border crossing with India around 12 miles from the city centre. That attack, also claimed by TTP-JA, killed more than 60 people.



The latest bombing will cast a shadow over the city’s three-day literary festival that begins on Friday.



Non-religious public gatherings are increasingly rare in the country and the event has proved a hit since it was first launched in 2013, attracting an estimated 50,000 last year.



Organisers say the gathering of book lovers challenges Pakistan’s reputation for extremist violence but concede some international authors have needed reassurance that Lahore is not the epicentre of terrorism.



Ahmed Rashid, a writer and one of the organisers, said a couple of foreign authors had been put off this year by government travel warnings and the tide of bad news about militant attacks on the country.



But Nuscie Jamil, a member of the organising committee, said security was a top priority for the festival and the Lahore police.

“All measures are in place to ensure everyone’s safety and there are no plans to cancel or shorten the programme,” she said.



Pakistan is currently on a war footing against the Taliban, following the massacre in December of 130 boys as they were attending school in the western city of Peshawar.



Also on Tuesday, Pakistan’s powerful army chief made his latest visit to the Afghan capital, Kabul, in a sign of growing counter-terrorism cooperation between the two often hostile neighbours.

Nighat Dad, a human rights activist who was in a mobile phone shop very close to the scene of Tuesday’s blast, said she felt increasingly unsafe in the city.



“The fear in my head is really strong now,” she said. “Just before I had been at the Lahore high court, where there was a huge crowd of lawyers and no one was checking bags and the machines weren’t working. I just had this sixth sense that something was wrong so I rushed out and went to Empress Road.”