ISLAMABAD — A powerful blast ripped through a public park in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore Sunday evening, killing at least 52 people and wounding at least 200, including women and children, rescue workers and officials said.
The blast, apparently caused by a suicide bomber, occurred in a parking lot at Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, one of the largest parks in Lahore, the capital of Punjab province, said Haider Ashraf, a senior police official in Lahore.
The park is frequented both by residents and visitors to the city, and is popular with families.
"It was a soft target. Innocent women and children and visitors from other cities have been targeted," Ashraf said. "Apparently, it seems like a suicide attack."
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast at the 67-acre park, which has walking paths as well as rides for children. The explosion coincided with violence in other parts of the country as hundreds of protesters took to the streets to condemn the Feb. 29 execution of Mumtaz Qadri, who had killed Salman Taseer, a governor who had campaigned for changes in the country's blasphemy laws, in January 2011.
Sunday was the 40th day since Qadri's execution, a mourning observance called Chaliswan in Pakistan, and drew his supporters into the streets of a number of cities, including Rawalpindi, one of the country's largest urban areas.
Taseer had tried to soften Pakistan's blasphemy laws, which he said had been used to persecute religious minorities. But to many in Pakistan, the idea of altering the country's blasphemy laws is itself criminal, and to his supporters Qadri has become a revered figure.
A state of emergency was imposed on hospitals in Lahore after the blast. Television footage on private networks broadcast images of rescue workers and ambulances rushing to the park and ferrying victims to hospitals. Distraught relatives milled about in hospital corridors as the wounded were treated.
"There was no prior intelligence report about the attack," Muhammad Usman, the district coordination officer in Lahore, told reporters.
Usman rebutted some reports that Christians were targeted in the blast. "The park belongs to all," he was quoted as saying.