A suicide bomber blew himself up in a city in eastern Afghanistan where President Ashraf Ghani was visiting, killing at least 19 people, many of them Sikhs and some of them Hindus.
ISLAMABAD – Pakistan has strongly condemned a suicide attack in Afghanistan’s Jalalabad city that killed at least 19 people, mostly Sikhs and Hindus, the Foreign Office said on Monday.
“We are distressed and grieved at the loss of precious human lives,” the Foreign Office said in a statement here.
“We express our deepest sympathies and heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of those who have lost their lives and pray for early recovery of the injured,” it added.
It said Pakistan reiterates its condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.
An Islamic State suicide bomber targeted a convoy of Sikhs and Hindus on their way to meet the Afghan president in the eastern city of Jalalabad on Sunday.
Some reports said 19 people were killed in the attack and 17 of them were from the minority Sikh and Hindu community.
Avtar Singh Khalsa, a longtime leader of the Sikh community who had planned to run in the parliamentary elections set for October, was also killed in the attack.
