A SUICIDE bomber killed at least 55 people Sunday at the main Pakistan-India border crossing, with the blast tearing through crowds of spectators leaving after the colorful daily ceremony to close the frontier.

    The explosion, which wounded more than 120, came at Wagah border gate near the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore after the “flag-lowering” ceremony, a display of military pageantry that attracts thousands of spectators every day and is popular with foreign tourists.

    The attack is a rare strike in Punjab, Pakistan’s richest and most populous province and power base of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, which has been spared the worst of the bloody wave of Islamist violence that has assailed the country in recent years.

    There were several conflicting claims of responsibility for the attack, reflecting the fragmentation the umbrella Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) movement has undergone in recent weeks.

    Abdullah Bahar, a spokesman for a TTP faction, said they carried it out to avenge Mehsud’s killing in a U.S. drone strike last year.

    But the Jamat-ul-Ahrar faction contradicted the claim and said they were behind the blast.(SD-Agencies)