- Title: PAKISTAN: BOMB BLAST AT LAHORE AIRPORT KILLS AT LEAST FOUR PEOPLE
- Date: 22nd July 1996
- Summary: LAHORE, PAKISTAN (JULY 22, 1996) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) 1. SLV EXTERIOR AIRPORT BUILDING 0.05 2. LV/CU OF BLOOD ON FLOOR. (3 SHOTS) 0.16 3. CU INJURED MAN WITH HEAD WOUND. 0.23 4. SLV POLICE INSIDE BUILDING, WRECKED WINDOWS. 0.28 5. SV DAMAGE TO POST OFFICE. 0.36 6. SV WOMEN CARRYING CHILDREN HELPED AWAY BY POLICE. 0.46
- Embargoed: 6th August 1996 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: LAHORE, PUNJAB, PAKISTAN
- City:
- Country: Pakistan ASIA
- Reuters ID: LVA6178T90W5O5R4HEP60INAK6QM
- Story Text: INTRO: Pakistan's Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto has vowed to fight terrorists with an "iron hand" after a bomb blast at Lahore airport on Momday killed at least four people and wounded 68.
------------------------------------------------------------------- A second bomb on Monday (July 22) in another town in Punjab province, of which Lahore is the capital, wounded eight people, provincial Chief Minister Mohammad Arif Nakai said.
Police said earlier that the Lahore explosion, at a food stall outside a domestic departure lounge at the airport, killed six people and wounded more than 50.
But Nakai told a news conference that four people were killed and 68 injured by the blast, which he blamed on unidentified "external elements". He said three of the dead could not be immediately identified because their bodies were mutilated.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility or information about who had set off the bomb, the latest in a series of such attacks in the country's most populous province.
A senior police official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters it was sabotage and he suspected a "foreign hand".
In the past, Pakistani authorities have accused intelligence networks from neighbouring India of sponsoring bomb attacks in Punjab in retaliation for Pakistan's support for militants fighting Indian rule in the Himalayan region of Kashmir.
India has denied the charges.
Islamabad says it gives Kashmiri militants only moral support.
Monday's bombings came a day after a protest strike called by the opposition paralysed the port city of Karachi.
Bhutto, now visiting South Korea, condemned the Lahore attack in a message which said: "Terrorists are out to terrorise the people and government of Pakistan." State television quoted her as declaring that her government would not compromise with terrorists and would "deal with them with an iron hand".
Political sources said the bombings were likely to put Bhutto under fresh pressure from opponents already accusing the government of failing to maintain the peace or to check corruption.
About 70 people have been killed and scores wounded since April by unidentified bombers who have targeted buses, markets, shops and a hospital in Punjab.
An attack at a railway station in the industrial town of Faisalabad on July 8 killed at least three people and wounded 14.
On April 14, a bomb at a Lahore cancer hospital built by former cricket captain Imran Khan killed at least six people and wounded more than 30.
- Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None