FUNERALS were held in Pakistan today for victims of a massive suicide bombing that targeted an election rally in support of a pro-Taliban cleric on Sunday.

At least 54 people are reported to have been killed in the blast in the north-western Bajur district, close to Afghanistan.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, which also left nearly 200 people wounded, but police said their initial investigation suggests the Islamic State group’s regional affiliate could be behind the attack.

The Pakistani government has pledged to hunt down those responsible for the attack.

The victims were all from the Jamiat Ulema Islam party, which is headed by hardline cleric and politician Fazlur Rehman. 

Mr Rehman did not attend the rally, held in a large tent close to a market in Bajur, a district of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. 

The Islamic State group in Khorasan Province is based in neighbouring Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province and is a rival of the Afghan Taliban.

Bajur was a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban, a close ally of Afghanistan’s Taliban government, before several Pakistani army offensives that ended in 2016 claimed to have driven the Islamic fundamentalist group from the area.

The cleric’s supporters had gathered in Bajur as part of their party’s preparations for the next parliamentary elections, expected in October or November after the current parliament’s five-year term ends.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is expected to dissolve parliament this month to pave the way for the national vote. 

Mr Rehman’s party is part of Mr Sharif’s coalition government, which came to power in April 2022 after ousting former prime minister Imran Khan via a no-confidence vote in the legislature.

Mr Khan has also condemned the bombing. 

Abdul Rasheed, a senior leader in Mr Rehman’s party, said the bombing was aimed at weakening the party but that “such attacks cannot deter our resolve.”

The outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan said the attack aimed to set Islamists against each other. 

Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman for the Afghan Taliban, posted on the social media platform X that “such crimes cannot be justified in any way.”

The bombing came hours before the arrival of Chinese Vice-Premier He Lifeng in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad. Today he was due to take part in an event to mark a decade of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a sprawling package under which Beijing has invested billions of dollars in Pakistan.

Some Chinese nationals have also been targeted by militants in north-western Pakistan and elsewhere.