Isalamabad, May 15: At least seven people have been killed and 20 others wounded after a bomb attack targeted a passenger bus in Pakistan’s eastern province of Punjab.
The explosion took place near Kharian, a garrison town about 125 kilometers (75 miles) southeast of the capital Islamabad, on Saturday evening, Xinhua reported.
Police said that around 50 passengers were on board when the bombing happened. The bus was en route to Kharian from the nearby city of Gujrat.
Three women and a child were reportedly among the dead. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the blast.
The attack comes a day after more than 80 people were killed and 140 others injured in twin blasts at a military training center in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Charsadda.
The explosions took place at about 6:10 a.m. local time (0110 GMT) on Friday morning at the Frontier Constabulary training site.
Taliban claimed responsibility for the assault and said it was revenge for the death of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
US President Barack Obama claimed that bin Laden was killed by US forces on May 1 in a hiding compound in Pakistan.
A US official later announced that bin Laden’s body was abruptly buried at sea, falsely boasting that his hasty burial was in accordance with the Islamic law, requiring burial within 24 hours of death.
However, burial at sea is not an Islamic practice and Islam does not have a decree on a burial timeframe.
US officials also claimed their decision of the sea burial was made because no country would accept his remain, without elaborating on which countries were actually contacted on the matter.
Analysts, however, have raised serious questions as to why US officials did not allow for the application of a DNA test to officially confirm the identity of the corpse before the quick sea burial.
Former officials with Pakistan’s military and intelligence service say the US wrongfully claims it has killed bin Laden in Pakistan as part of a scheme to invade the country for harboring the terrorist leader.
Furthermore, Obama announced in a televised interview that he decided not to publish “disturbing imaged” of bin Laden’s dead body to avert “a national security risk” and due to concerns that it might be used as a “propaganda tool.”
The US has also rejected growing arguments that the US military effort against bin Laden in Pakistan was illegal, describing the operation as “an act of national self-defense.”
US Attorney General Eric Holder told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that the killing of bin Laden was lawful and consistent with US values.
According to US media reports, many US lawmakers now insist that the time for a US withdrawal from Afghanistan has arrived, arguing that the main aim of the US troop deployment to Afghanistan was to kill or capture Osama.
——-Agencies