LAHORE, Oct 17: Lawyers, students and rights activists gathered at Charing Cross on The Mall on Friday to pay a tribute to the victims of the Oct 18 blast in Karachi last year.

The bombing was an attack on a motorcade carrying former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. The bombing occurred two months before she was assassinated, and resulted in at least 139 deaths and 450 injuries. Most of the dead were members of the Pakistan People’s Party.

The participants in the vigil lit candles and raised slogans against the current wave of terror attacks engulfing the city, and for peace to triumph over warfare.

Khurram Latif Khosa, Amna Javed Buttar (MPA), Abdullah Malik of the People’s Justice Forum, Amna Malik, Iftikhar Butt of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and Sufyan Arshad of the Students Action Committee were among those present. They were joined by other members of the public on the street, who also paid tribute to fallen leader Benazir Bhutto.

Abdullah Malik urged the government to create a fund for the victims of terror to enable them to live comfortably or for the benefit of the bereaved relatives. He said: “What we are seeing now is the result of nine years of failed policies on behalf of Musharraf’s government.”

He said Musharraf’s failed strategies had shown that terror cannot be fought with force alone and that the government must engage in further dialogue with militants and others disenfranchised by the US strikes in the tribal areas, in order to reach a political solution to the current conflict.