Death toll of Pakistan's Friday bombings rises to 59

Death toll of the two bomb blasts that hit two different cities of Pakistan on Friday has risen to 59, officials said on Saturday.

Injured victims of twin blasts in the northwestern town of Parachinar are treated at a hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan, Saturday, June 24, 2017. A Pakistani government official says death toll from twin bombings at crowded market at northwestern tribal town of Parachinar has risen to more than 50 bringing the overall death toll from three separate attacks on Friday to more than 70. [Photo: AP/Muhammad Sajjad]

According to a local administrator Shoukat Yousafzai, death toll of the twin blasts that ripped through a market on Friday afternoon in Parachinar city of tribal region Kurram Agency has risen to 45, after 27 wounded people succumbed to their injuries in different hospitals overnight.

The worst incident of the day took place at around 5:30 p.m. local time when some unknown terrorists triggered a low intensity blast amid people busy with shopping at a downtown busy Turi market of the city for the coming Eid festival, a holiday which marks the end of the fast month Ramadan.

The first blast was used as a decoy to lure more people to the site for the second attack. Few minutes after the first explosion when hundreds of people gathered around the site to witness the rescue work, a much bigger blast occurred only meters away from the site of the first blast, leaving 18 dead on the spot and over 100 others injured.

According to the local media reports, the twin explosions were triggered with remote-controlled devices, however no group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet.

Local police, rescue teams and security personnel rushed to the site shortly after the twin blasts and shifted the bodies and injured to the nearby hospitals.

Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa ordered two military helicopters to the area which airlifted critically wounded people to the Combined Military Hospital in Peshawar, the country's northwest provincial capital.

In another incident on Friday morning, a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into a check post outside a senior police officer's office in the country's southwest city of Quetta killing 14 people and leaving over a dozen others injured.

According to hospital sources in Quetta, the death toll of the blast has risen to 14 after one of the injured died during treatment at the intensive care unit of the hospital on Saturday.

At least seven policemen were among the deceased who died in the Quetta blast claimed by the terrorist organization Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter group of Pakistani Taliban.

Bomb Disposal Squad of police said that around 75 kilograms of explosives along ball bearings and unbolts were used in the attack.

Following the incidents, the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), a mouthpiece of Pakistan army, said security had been tightened across the country and special intelligence based operations and search operations had been launched in cooperation with intelligence and other law enforcing agencies.

Linking the recent terrorist incidents in Pakistan to the sanctuaries across the border in Afghanistan, the ISPR said security and surveillance of Pak-Afghan border has been enhanced and stringent actions would be taken against illegal border crossings.

So far in three different operations after the attacks, at least six terrorists have been killed and three others arrested by the security forces in different areas of Pakistan's northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

"Enemy trying to mar festive mood of nation through such coward acts. Shall fail against resilience of Pakistan," General Bajwa said.

Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the terrorist attacks and expressed deep grief and sorrow over the loss of precious lives.

"These cowardly attacks are a sign of growing frustration of terrorists and extremists. Such elements deserved no mercy and would meet their fate soon in view of the unflinching and united resolve of the entire nation against terrorism and extremism," said the PM.