The death toll from a massive suicide bombing that targeted an election rally of a religious party has risen to 54, as Pakistan held funerals and the government vowed to hunt down those behind the attack.

Daesh claimed responsibility for Sunday’s bombing, which also wounded nearly 200 people.

The victims were attending a rally organised by the the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-F (JUI-F) party, headed by influential cleric and politician Fazlur Rehman.

He did not attend the rally, held under a large tent close to a market in Bajur, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan.

Rehman, who has long supported Afghanistan’s Taliban government, escaped at least two attacks in 2011 and 2014, when bombings damaged his car at rallies.

Victims of the attack were buried in Bajur on Monday.

On Monday, police recorded statements from some of the wounded at a hospital in Khar, Bajur’s largest town. Feroz Jamal, the provincial information minister, said police were “investigating this attack in all aspects.”

Insurgency returns

At least 1,000 people were gathered under a large tent on Sunday as their party prepared for parliamentary elections, expected in October or November.

“People were chanting God is Great on the arrival of senior leaders, when I heard the deafening sound of the bomb,” said Khan Mohammad, a local resident who said he was standing outside the tent.

Mohammad said he heard people crying for help, and minutes later ambulances started arriving and taking the wounded away.

Abdul Rasheed, a senior leader in Rehman’s party said the bombing was aimed at weakening the party but that “such attacks cannot deter our resolve.”

Militant groups have long had a presence in Bajur. The district was formerly a base for Al Qaeda and a stronghold of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The army declared the district clear of the group in 2016 following a series of offensives.

The Daesh terror group’s regional affiliate is based in neighbouring Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province and is a rival of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Investigation underway

Shaukat Abbas, a senior police officer, said that police have made progress in their investigation, but did not provide details.

Pakistani security analyst Mahmood Shah said that breakaway factions of the TTP could also be behind the attack. He said some TTP members have been known to disobey their top leadership to carry out attacks, as have breakaway factions of the group.

Shah said such factions could have perpetrated the attack to cause “confusion, instability and unrest ahead of the elections.”

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is expected to dissolve Pakistan’s parliament in August.

The US and Russian embassies in Islamabad also condemned the attack. Khan condemned the bombing Sunday.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman for the Afghan Taliban, wrote in a tweet that “such crimes cannot be justified in any way.”

Source: TRTworld.com