At least 39 people were killed on Thursday and over 100 injured when two bombs ripped through a procession of the banned Sunni extremist organisation, Sipha-e-Sehba, in Multan city of Pakistan's Punjab province.
A car bomb blast was followed by the explosion of a device planted in a motorcycle in the early hours when a large number of people were returning from a Sunni congregation, Mayor Pir Riaz Hussain Qureshi said.
State run PTV quoted doctors at the Multan Government Hospital as saying that 39 people were killed and over a hundred injured. Doctors said the condition of at least 50 of the wounded was serious.
The blasts resulted in the snapping of the high-tension overhead electricity cables, which caused a number of casualties, Deputy Inspector General of Police Talat Mehmood Tariq told Geo TV.
The procession was returning from a gathering to commemorate the death anniversary of the Sipha-e-Sehba founder
leader Azam Tariq.
Tariq was gunned down near Islamabad last year.
"The blasts were caused by a remote controlled device...and no suicide bomber was involved in the incident," the DIG said.
The attack came a week after a suicide attacker detonated a bomb inside a crowded Shia mosque in the eastern city of Sialkot, killing 31 people and injuring more than 50.
Police patrolling in Multan has been intensified to prevent any attacks on the Shia community.
