Quetta mourns terror victims

Pakistan's lawyers boycotted courts and staged protests nationwide yesterday after a horrific suicide bombing at a Quetta hospital which killed 72 people including many of their colleagues.

Monday's bloodletting, with medics battling to save scores of injured amid scenes of carnage, left the southwestern city reeling. Police stood guard yesterday at the Civil Hospital, where the bomb tore through a crowd of some 200 lawyers who had gathered there the previous day to mourn the fatal shooting of a colleague.

Both the Pakistani Taliban and the Islamic State group have asserted responsibility for the attack, though neither claim has been verified by Pakistani authorities.

The IS claim, if true, would make it the group's deadliest attack so far in Pakistan, where it has struggled for purchase. Scores of lawyers held rallies in major cities including Islamabad, Karachi and Quetta yesterday.