Hundreds of mourners were attending the funeral when the bomber struck
At least 27 people have been killed and 55 others wounded in a suicide bomb attack at a funeral in north-west Pakistan, officials say.
Among those killed was a newly-elected lawmaker linked to Imran Khan’s PTI party. It is unclear if he was the target of the attack.
The bomb blast in Shergarh town in Mardan district is the bloodiest since PM Nawaz Sharif took office.
No group has said it carried out the attack.
One witness is quoted as telling Pakistan’s Dunya television that hundreds of mourners were attending the funeral when the suicide bomber detonated his device.
“We all fell down after the blast,” the witness is quoted as saying. “There were bodies and wounded everywhere.”
The politician who was killed, Imran Khan Mohmand, stood as an independent candidate in elections last month but later lent his support to the PTI, which won control of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the polls.
Before the election the Taliban were behind a string of attacks on parties and candidates as part of a militant campaign to derail the vote, mostly targeting secular parties.
The PTI was largely spared that violence but the Associated Press news agency reports that Mr Mohmand is the second lawmaker affiliated with the party to be killed since the election.
The party has condemned this latest attack.
Analysts say that if Mr Mohmand was in fact the target, this would pose a challenge to Imran Khan who declared his willingness to negotiate with the Taliban in the run-up to the election.
Pakistan funeral bomb "kills 27"
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