Islamabad, 30 July 2023 (dpa/MIA) – A bomb went off at the rally of an Islamic political party in north-western Pakistan on Sunday, killing at least 40 people and wounding many more, officials said.

The bomb exploded inside the packed venue of a rally organized by the Jamiat Ulama e Islam party in the restive region of Bajaur, an area once controlled by the Pakistani Taliban, a separate group from their Afghan counterparts.

"Around 150 injured people were taken to the hospital," local doctor Faisal Khan said, adding that the death toll had risen to at least 40.

Many injured people were in critical condition and were being airlifted to hospitals in the city of Peshawar, rescue department spokesman Bilal Faizi told dpa.

"We fear the death toll will increase," he added.

Ahead of national elections in Pakistan set for later this year, activists of the party had been gathering inside a walled compound for a workers’ convention taking place near the Afghan border.

The president of the party, Maulana Fazalur Rehman, leads a governing alliance of several small parties and has survived at least three attacks by the Taliban in the past. He is considered a supporter of Taliban rule in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Party spokesman Hafiz Hamdullah said a local leader was among the dead while two national MPs were wounded in the bombing that he condemned as "savage."

"It is now an attack on out party. It is an assault on Pakistan, its democracy," Hamdullah said, struggling to hold back tears at a press conference in the capital Islamabad.

Pakistani television showed footage of corpses lying on the ground, overturned chairs and victims covered in blood. Pakistan's largest broadcaster, Geo television, said a member of its camera team was critically injured and taken to a hospital in another town.

Initial evidence collected from the site suggested a suicide bombing might have exploded in the crowd, local police chief Nasir Satti said.

No group has immediately claimed the responsibility on the attack in the town of Khar, but both the Pakistani Taliban and the extremist Islamic State militant groups are active in the region and have been targeting security forces and civilians.

The surge in the violence by the Islamist militants ahead of the elections in Pakistan has been a trend since 2008.

The attack, the deadliest in Pakistan in almost half a year, comes days after a report by a UN committee that al-Qaeda might be seeking a revival in the region through an alliance with the Pakistan Taliban group.

Emboldened by the takeover of Afghanistan by their counterparts in 2021, the Pakistani Taliban, who are allegedly operating from Afghan border regions, have stepped up violence against the security forces.

Photo: EPA