On Friday February 17, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon sent a message of condolences to Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif over a deadly terrorist attack that killed 75 people at shrine in Sindh province, according to the Tajik president’s official website.
In his message, President Rahmon noted that he was deeply saddened to hear of deadly bombing at shrine in the city of Sehwan in Sindh province.
“Tajikistan strongly condemns this inhuman act committed by criminals covering themselves with the name of Islam. We are ready to continue international cooperation to combat terrorism,” the message says.
Media reports say a massive bombing claimed by Islamic State (IS) terrorist group killed 75 people and injured about 150 at a crowded shrine on February 16. A suicide bomber detonated the bomb among crowds gathered for the busiest day of the week at the shrine to Sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan, a city in the southern Sindh province.
Officials in Pakistan say they have killed at least 39 suspected militants and arrested 47 suspects in a sweeping security crackdown a day after the terrorist attack.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, issued a statement saying an attack on Sufis was considered a “direct threat”.
Amaq, a news agency affiliated to IS, claimed the jihadi group had carried out the attack. It was also the latest such attack on devotees of Sufism, a mystical and generally moderate form of Islam despised by radical fundamentalists.
Pakistan has seen a rise in terrorist attacks in recent days, including an attack on peaceful protesters in the heart of Lahore, a bombing in Quetta that killed two police officers and an explosion in the frontier city of Peshawar.
The United Nations has condemned the terrorist attack at Lal Shahbaz Qalandar’s shrine. “We condemn the terrorist attack on worshippers at a Sufi shrine in Sehwan,” Deputy Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General Farhan Haq said in a statement.
