Khar: Nearly 44 people killed and 200 injured in a bomb blast at a political rally on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan on Saturday. The Bajur district near the Afghan border was a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban a close ally of Afghanistan’s Taliban Government.

The Pakistani army drove the militants out of the area. Supporters of hardline Pakistani cleric and political party leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman, whose Jamiat Ulema Islam generally supports regional Islamists, were meeting in Bajur Sunday in a hall close to a market outside the district capital.

Party officials said Rehman was not at the rally but organizers added tents because so many supporters showed up, and party volunteers with batons were helping control the crowd. Rehman is considered to be a pro-Taliban cleric and his political party is part of the coalition government in Islamabad. Meetings are being organized across the country to mobilize supporters for the upcoming elections.

Several people and lost their lives and many more were wounded in this incident. I will ask the federal and provincial administrations to fully investigate this incident and provide due compensation and medical facilities to the affected ones, Rasheed said.