At least 35 persons were murdered in an explosion in Pakistan at an Islamist party rally.
More than 100 people were also injured in the blast in the northwestern Bajaur area, where the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) was meeting.
According to police, evidence suggests that the explosion was a suicide attack.
Officers reported that the rescue effort had been concluded and that all injured people had been transported to hospitals.
Security personnel have sealed off the area, and officials have cautioned that the death toll could increase higher because many of the injured are in severe condition.
The motive for the attack is still unknown.
Hundreds of people attended the JUI-F workers’ convention on Sunday in Khar, Pakistan’s tribal area of Bajaur, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, close the Afghan border.
Images on local television show ambulances transporting injured people to hospitals, with some being taken to neighboring Peshawar for treatment by military helicopters.
Authorities have declared a health emergency at the district hospital.
Some badly injured people have been waiting in the hallways of health clinics struggling to cope with the high number of casualties.
A regional leader of the JUI-F, Maulana Ziaullah, was killed in the blast, local officials told the BBC.
JUI-F is a major religious political party and forms part of the government coalition in Pakistan’s parliament.
The party’s leader, Fazal-ur-Rehman, has demanded that Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif launch an inquiry into the explosion.
The political gathering was an opportunity for the JUI-F to rally its support, ahead of an election expected to take place later this year.
While no-one has yet said they carried out the attack, the local branch of Islamic State group (IS) in Pakistan claimed to be behind several attacks this year in Bajaur and has previously claimed targeting JUI-F.
In June, the militants said they were behind the assassination of a party official in the village of Inayat Killi.
IS issued the claim in the name of its “Khorasan Province” branch (ISKP), which operates in Afghanistan and north-west Pakistan. The group also claims attacks in Pakistan in the name of its “Pakistan Province” branch.
