The Lahore bombing on Easter Sunday that killed at least 70 is part of a wider struggle against extremism in Pakistan, explains a British correspondent for Lapidomedia.
He was in the country during what he calls an Easter ‘weekend of madness’; it also saw 25,000 hard-line Islamic protestors march on parliament to demand, amongst other things, the execution of all Christians – like Asia Bibi – held on blasphemy charges.
‘As we drove home from Easter Sunday celebrations we could hear the chanting: thousands of people in the heart of Pakistan’s capital city demanding that the government institute a policy of ethnic cleansing,’ he reports.
Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif ordered swift action on terrorists, like the Taliban splinter group Jamaat-ul-Ahrar which says it carried out the Easter bombing. Today (Tues) dozens of arrests have been made, and arms caches seized.