Extremist bomb attacks killed 126 people in one of Pakistan's deadliest days for years, raising concerns on Friday about rising violence in the nuclear-armed country ahead of general elections.
Two suicide bombers killed 92 people and wounded 121 after they targeted a crowded snooker club in the southwestern city of Quetta on Thursday, in an area dominated by Shiite Muslims from the Hazara ethnic minority.
Extremist Sunni militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for what was the worst ever sectarian attack on Shiites, who account for around 20 percent of Pakistan's 180 million population.
Hundreds of Shiites staged a sit-in at the devastated snooker hall on Friday, refusing to bury loved ones until the army takes responsibility for security in Quetta from paramilitary and police officers.
"The death toll is now 92," said police official Hamid Shakeel.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility in telephone calls to local journalists. The group has links to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and was involved in the kidnap and beheading of reporter Daniel Pearl in January 2002.
The attacks, coupled with violence in the northwest, revived warnings from analysts that Islamist militancy could threaten national elections, expected sometime in May.
Polls would mark the first time an elected civilian government in Pakistan, for decades ruled by the military, completes a term in office and is replaced by another democratically elected government.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan demanded that the government take immediate steps to clamp down on "murdering mayhem" ahead of the elections.