A Taliban splinter group says it carried out a suicide attack on a park in Lahore, Pakistan, which killed more than 70 people, including children.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar said it had targeted Christians celebrating Easter, though police have said they are still investigating the claim.
There were scenes of carnage as parents searched for children amid the debris.
Pakistan’s president condemned the attack, and the regional government has announced three days of mourning.
At least 300 people were injured, with officials saying they expected the death toll to rise.
All major hospitals in the area were put on an emergency footing after the blast, early on Sunday evening.
The bombing of the amusement park on Easter Sunday was the bloodiest attack on Christians in Pakistan since the 2013 Peshawar church bombing that killed more than 80 people.
But many believe there may be a wider context to the latest attack – 27 March was the deadline set by an alliance of more than 30 religious groups for the provincial government of Punjab to withdraw a new women’s rights law they oppose.
And supporters of Mumtaz Qadri, a police guard executed last month for the 2011 killing of a provincial governor who advocated reform of the blasphemy laws, have also launched protests. They brought forward the customary 40th day mourning for Qadri by 13 days to coincide with 27 March and several thousand have now occupied a high-security zone in Islamabad to press demands which include the implementation of Sharia law.
Sunday’s carnage in Lahore was claimed by Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, an increasingly effective faction of the Pakistani Taliban which has carried out several attacks in the north-western Peshawar valley region during the last few months.
Lahore is one of Pakistan’s most liberal and wealthy cities. It is the political powerbase of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and has seen relatively few terror attacks in recent years.
A spokesman for Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, Ehsanullah Ehsan, said the group wanted to send a message to Mr Sharif that they “have entered Lahore”, and threatened further attacks.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar is a breakaway group from Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan. It has carried out several other attacks on Pakistani civilians and security forces in recent months.
Mr Sharif expressed “grief and sorrow over the sad demise of innocent lives”. He has postponed a planned trip to the UK.
The explosion, believed to have been carried out by one suicide bomber, hit the main gate to the Gulshan-e-Iqbal park in the early evening, a short distance from the children’s playground.
Officials said the device had been packed with ball bearings.
Image copyrightAPImage captionPolice stood guard at the scene after the attack
The popular was more crowded than usual, as Lahore’s minority Christians were celebrating Easter at its funfair.
Estimated to make up about 1.6% of the population, they are the second largest minority in Pakistan after Hindus
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Large population in Karachi but also in the Punjab heartland and the cities of Lahore and Faisalabad, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province particularly in Peshawar city.
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Majority are descendants of low-caste Hindus who converted under the British Raj
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Most remain poor menial workers, though there are wealthier Christians who came from Goa and are mainly in Karachi
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Attacks, including church and hospital bomb blasts and mob attacks on Christian villages, have increased in recent years; the deadliest was two bombs at a Peshawar church in 2013 which left around 80 dead
