Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali on Wednesday took suo motu notice of the Quetta attack which killed over 70 people, including lawyers, on August 8.

The chief justice also sought a report from Balochistan police chief regarding the ongoing investigation. The Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) had issued an ultimatum to the federal and provincial government to apprehend the culprits behind the Quetta carnage by August 19 or face demonstration in front of the Parliament House.

Lawyers across the country had boycotted courts to protest a suicide attack at the Quetta Civil Hospital on August 8 which killed 70 people, mostly lawyers.

At least 70 people, nearly half of them lawyers, were killed and more than a hundred wounded in a suicide attack targeting mourners gathered at a state-run hospital. The Balochistan government announced three days of official mourning for the victims of the terrorist attack, one of the deadliest in the country’s history.

The explosion took place when Balochistan Bar Association President Bilal Kasi’s body was being brought to the emergency department. He was gunned down at Mano Jan Road earlier that day. Former Balochistan Bar President Baz Muhammad Kakar was injured in the attack. He later succumbed to his wounds at the hospital.

Police said that unknown men opened fire after the blast. Panic tore through the hospital after the incident. The blast occurred near the emergency department of the hospital.

Many quarters claimed that the attack wiped off an entire generation of lawyers in Balochistan.