ISLAMABAD: Data from hospitals showed that the death toll of the suicide attack on an imambargah in Islamabad reached 38 on Monday.
Speaking in the National Assembly, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Tariq Fazal Chaudhry said that 33 people were killed in the attack while more than 150 were injured. However, hospital records show that the toll has increased.
On the day of the incident, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) spokesperson Dr Aneeza Jalil said that 28 dead bodies were brought to the hospital. On the other hand, Polyclinic said that four dead bodies were brought to the hospital, which added up to 32 deaths, as reported by the media.
A day later, on Saturday, the Pims Spokesperson confirmed that a patient had died. The same day, it was also learnt that some of the injured were shifted to the HBS Institute of Healthcare and Allied Health Sciences, out of which three had died.
The hospital’s representative, Dr Riaz Janjua, told Dawn that three deaths were reported at his hospital. He informed that as many as 67 injured were brought to the medical facility.
Therefore, with the addition of three deaths at the private hospital, the death toll reached 36.
On Monday, two more deaths were confirmed; one of the injured died at Polyclinic while another, who was shifted from Pims to a private hospital, also breathed his last, taking the toll to 38.
Moreover, a document from Polyclinic shows that five deaths involving the incident have been recorded so far, with the first four being on Friday and the latest on Monday. The document also showed that seven patients were in critical condition and one was on the ventilator.
According to the Pims spokesperson, 40 of those injured were still being treated at the hospital. Out of these, seven were admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). She said that 29 deaths had been recorded at the hospital so far.
Friday’s suicide blast at the Tarlai Imambargah was the second major terrorist attack in the federal capital in less than three months despite heightened security measures adopted by the police and the capital administration.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi on Saturday said that four facilitators behind the incident, including the mastermind, had been arrested, saying the suspects were detained in overnight raids in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
