Pakistan market bombing leaves dozens dead

The death toll from a bombing that tore through a crowded vegetable market in a mostly Shiite Muslim neighbourhood of southwestern Pakistan climbed to 81 with many of the severely wounded dying overnight, a Pakistani police official said on Sunday.

Police official Fayyaz Saumbal said 164 people also were wounded by the explosion Saturday in the city of Quetta just as people shopped for produce for their evening meal. The bomb was hidden in a water tank and towed into the market by a tractor, Quetta police chief Zubair Mahmood told reporters.

It was the deadliest incident since bombings targeting Shiites in the same city killed 86 people earlier this year, leading to days of protests that eventually toppled the local government.

Shiites have been increasingly attacked by militant groups who view them as heretics and non-Muslims in this Sunni Muslim dominated country. Many of the Shiites in Quetta, including those in the neighbourhood attacked Saturday, are Hazaras, an ethnic group that migrated to Pakistan from Afghanistan more than a century ago.

Quetta police chief Zubair Mahmood told reporters that the bomb was hidden in a water tank and towed into the market by a tractor. He said the blast destroyed shops in the neighbourhood and caused a two-story building to collapse.

“We fear some victims may be found buried there,” he said.