{Police investigate apparent attack on census workers and soldiers guarding them in nation’s second biggest city, Lahore.}<\/p>\n
Islamabad, Pakistan – An explosion has targeted a Pakistani government census team, killing at least five people in the eastern city of Lahore, officials say.<\/p>\n
The blast on Wednesday morning in Pakistan’s second largest city also wounded at least nine people, all suffering from major injuries, according to a source at Lahore’s General Hospital, where they were being treated. <\/p>\n
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan group claimed responsibility, saying it was a suicide attack. <\/p>\n
Khawaja Imran Nazir, health minister of Punjab province, of which Lahore is the main city, confirmed the death toll.<\/p>\n
“The target seems to be the census team and the soldiers guarding them,” Malik Ahmed Khan, a spokesperson for the Punjab government, told local television news channel Geo.<\/p>\n
MIitary sources told Al Jazeera that four military personnel – three army soldiers and one member of the air force – were killed in the attack. <\/p>\n
{{‘Act of terrorism’}}<\/p>\n
Rana Sanaullah, a senior provincial minister, told Geo the attack “appeared to be an act of terrorism”.<\/p>\n
“Sacrifice of precious lives of civil enumerators and soldiers is beyond any doubt a great sacrifice,” Qamar Javed Bajwa, Pakistan’s army chief, said in a statement, without giving any details about the number of soldiers killed in the bombing.<\/p>\n
Pakistan’s Bureau of Statistics launched its first door-to-door population census since 1998 last month, working in conjunction with the military, which has deployed 200,000 troops to provide security for the exercise.<\/p>\n
At least 119,000 government employees are taking part in the exercise as enumerators.<\/p>\n
The lead-up to the census has been marked by political debate on how the results may show changing demographics – potentially redrawing electoral constituencies – across the country.<\/p>\n
Television footage from the scene showed a destroyed vehicle and debris scattered on the road, as police formed a security cordon around the site\u2019s perimeter.<\/p>\n
{{Surge in violence}}<\/p>\n
Pakistan has seen a surge in violence in the past two months, starting with a series of attacks that killed more than 130 people in mid-February.<\/p>\n
Those attacks were claimed by the Pakistan Taliban and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.<\/p>\n
At least 13 people were killed in Lahore when a suicide bomber targeted police at a protest demonstration on February 13 <\/p>\n
In response, Pakistan\u2019s military announced it was launching a new operation – dubbed Radd-al-Fasaad, or Elimination of Mischief\/Chaos – across the country, to cement the gains made against the Pakistan Taliban during a previous three-year operation launched in 2014.<\/p>\n
Source:Al Jazeera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Police investigate apparent attack on census workers and soldiers guarding them in nation’s second biggest city, Lahore.} Islamabad, Pakistan – An explosion has targeted a Pakistani government census team, killing at least five people in the eastern city of Lahore, officials say. The blast on Wednesday morning in Pakistan’s second largest city also wounded at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-33699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33699"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=33699"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=33699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}