Hundreds of devotees packed one of Pakistan’s most popular shrines on the busiest night of the week.

Then a suicide bomber struck and panic took over.

A second bomber detonated his device as people fled the first.

Militants linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban have stepped up attacks in Pakistan’s central province of Punjab in retaliation for military offensives in their northwest homeland. Lahore is the regional capital.

At least 41 people were killed in last night’s attacks at Lahore’s Data Darbar Sufi shrine.

More than 120 were injured, many by flying glass and ball bearings, thought to have been packed into the explosives.

Rescue workers did what they could, helped by bystanders who had escaped death and injury themselves.

Only hours before, security chiefs had welcomed news that June was the first month in two years in which there had been no suicide bombings in Pakistan.

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