Turkey’s justice minister has announced that a total of 50 people have been detained in connection to a recent bombing in İstanbul that left six people dead, BBC Turkish reported.
Turkey was shaken by a deadly bombing on İstiklal Street on Sunday that also injured more 80.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdağ said on Tuesday that the number of suspects who have been detained in connection to the attack has increased to 50.
The police said 46 people had been detained on Monday.
Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu announced on Monday that a Syrian woman who allegedly planted the bomb on İstiklal Street was detained. The minister said the woman had links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
“According to our findings, the PKK terrorist organization is responsible,” Soylu said.
The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, has waged a deadly insurgency for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey since the 1980s.
Yet the PKK in a statement later in the day denied any responsibility for the explosion, saying that it does not target civilians.
Meanwhile, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Tuesday that among the 81 people who were injured in Sunday’s explosion, 58 have been discharged from the hospital, while 17 continue to be hospitalized and six remain in intensive care.
Among the victims of the blast were a couple, a mother with her 15-year-old daughter and a father with his 9-year-old daughter who happened to be in the area at the time of the explosion.