Pakistan Views

Mourners gathered on Wednesday for the funerals of 32 people killed in two suicide blasts in Lahore, which have piled pressure on the incoming government to tackle militancy. Prayers were to be held at a special ceremony for at least 12 employees of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) who died when one of the bombs targeted their headquarters here on Tuesday. The 10 civilians also killed in that attack were being buried separately, as were the four people — including two children — who died in the second bombing targeting an advertising agency a few kilometres (miles) away. No one has claimed responsibility but authorities said that al Qaeda and Taliban militants behind a wave of violence that has left 600 people dead were likely behind the attacks. “The perpetrators want to say that they are a force to be reckoned with. They want to target security forces, they want to put pressure on the new government,” Interior Ministry spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema (Retd) told AFP. The parties of martyred PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto and of former premier Nawaz Sharif beat President Pervez Musharraf’s allies in elections in February and are set to form a coalition government when parliament meets next week. The two parties look set for a showdown with Musharraf but will also have to tackle the recent rash of attacks as one of their first priorities. Most of the recent blasts have targeted the army, intelligence services and police in an apparent attempt to press Pak forces to stop military operations against insurgents. But Cheema said that security forces “will not budge in the face of this threat by a nameless and faceless enemy.”