ISLAMABAD, Oct 1: President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz have separately condemned the Sialkot terrorist attack on an imambargah in which 25 people were killed and dozens others were injured.
In a statement issued in Rawalpindi, the president expressed shock and grief and condemned terrorists for hitting worshippers as they were offering Friday prayers. He said it clearly showed that terrorists had no religion, adding that they were enemies of mankind.
Gen Musharraf reaffirmed the government's commitment to root out terrorism and to provide peace and security to the people. He said that there could be no compromise over the nation's resolve to rid the society of extremism and sectarianism.
The president expressed his condolences to the members of bereaved families and said that the culprits behind the heinous crime would not escape punishment. He directed the law-enforcement agencies to thoroughly investigate the incident to unmask perpetrators. He also asked the local authorities to provide the best possible treatment to the injured. He urged the people to maintain peace and calm.
AZIZ: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Friday condemned the dastardly act of terrorism. Taking strong note of the incident, the prime minister directed the provincial authorities and law enforcement agencies to make all-out efforts to nab those responsible for the act.
He said the country's security agencies had successfully hunted down those involved in such incidents in the past and vowed that terrorists responsible for the mosque attack will not be spared. -Agencies
BENAZIR: Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto has expressed shock and grief over the killing of people in a Sialkot mosque bomb blast on Friday, our reporter adds from Islamabad.
"The bomb blast at a place of worship and the killing of innocent people is most reprehensible and the Pakistan People's Party condemns it in the strongest possible words," she said in a statement issued the PPP media cell here on Friday.
She said law and order had broken down and people were being killed in the mosques, the bazaars and the streets, while the rulers were busy finding ways to acquire more and more powers for their personal aggrandizement.
She said a dictatorship could not stem the rise of violence because it was itself based on violence and subversion of the rule of law. She said only democratic governments, whose policies were backed by the people, could check violence. Ms Bhutto demanded immediate arrest of the perpetrators of the crime and prayed for those who lost their lives in the incident.
RASHID: Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed on Friday described the Sialkot bomb blast as a 'suicidal attack', our staff reporter adds. "Preliminary investigations revealed that it was a suicidal attack," he said while briefing newsmen on the three-nation visit of President General Pervez Musharraf.
However, he said, any final word about the attack could only be said after a thorough investigation. The minister condemned the blast incident and expressed the resolve that those responsible will be dealt with severely. "This is a naked act of terrorism," he said.
He said President Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and the nation as a whole had condemned the attack. The city of Sialkot, he said, had been a centre of peace and it could have been selected by terrorists deliberately to give a bad name to the country.
The bomb blast in Sialkot is stated to be the first incident of terrorism in the country after the death of a top Al Qaeda operative in Pakistan, Amjad Hussain Farooqi, who was killed in a gun battle in Nawabshah. "This could be a retaliatory act of terror network after suffering a severe dent in its ranks made by security agencies," he said. Mr Rashid said this could also be an abortive attempt to undermine the recent three-nation visit of President Musharraf.
He said the terrorists could never achieve their nefarious designs through such gruesome acts and killing innocent people. Responding to a question, he said all security agencies were on high alert but the question how to foil suicidal attacks was yet to be solved even by the US and other developed states.
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