[Dawn] Blasts which killed 51 people and engulfed a busy market in flames in Lahore were caused by two suicide bombers, police and bomb disposal experts said Wednesday.The two explosions hit within seconds of each other as shoppers and diners milled around the popular Moon Market on Monday evening, with government officials blaming Taliban fighters avenging military operations against them.
'Now it has been confirmed that two suicide bombers carried out these attacks. We have made some arrests but as yet there is no major breakthrough,' said Chaudhry Shafiq, a deputy police chief in Lahore.
He said that the death toll from the blast in the nation's cultural capital had risen from 49 to 51, with the two bombers also killed and about 140 people wounded.
Mazhar Ahmad, who heads the bomb disposal squad in Lahore, said ball bearings and grenades were found at the blast site, indicating that the two attackers were wearing suicide vests packed with deadly explosives.
'Both the blasts took place in a highly crowded area. The second blast was near an electricity pole causing an electric short circuit and triggering the fire,' he told AFP.
'The fire caused by the blasts and short-circuit engulfed the whole area and caused severe damage,' he added. 'Had we succeeded in controlling the fire in 10-15 minutes, the human loss would have been less.'
The Lahore blasts were part of a surge in militant strikes this week, with a suicide bombing in Peshawar on Monday killing 11 people, a senior hospital official said, updating the previous death toll of 10.
Then on Tuesday, two suicide attackers firing rockets and guns drove up to the offices of Pakistan's main intelligence agency in Multan, before detonating their car bomb and killing 10 people.
'Rescue workers have recovered another dead body of a woman. A total of 10 people were killed and 47 injured,' said Multan police chief Saood Aziz, adding that four of the wounded were in critical condition.