Four persons were killed and 30 others injured when a powerful bomb exploded outside a mosque in Karachi’s Delhi Colony today, minutes after Friday prayers.
The bomb was planted in a rickshaw which was parked near the mosque, police official Khaliq Sheikh said.
Ten kgs of explosives were used in the attack, IG Sindh Iqbal Mahmood told reporters at the blast site.
“It was definitely targeted,” he said.
“Just before the blast a bus carrying passengers was on way to a Imambargah (Shia Muslim praying place) and they could have been the target of the attack,” he told reporters.
The blast occurred soon after the Friday prayers in the Gizri area near the upscale Clifton locality.
This is the first time that such a major explosion has taken place in the Gizri area, close to Clifton.
The blast killed four people and wounded 30 others, five seriously, Sindh Health Minister Sagheer Ahmed told reporters.
“There is a deep crater near the blast but we are investigating and someone could have been a target,” he said.
Dr Seemi Jamali at the Jinnah Hospital where the injured were taken said condition of five of the injured was critical.
Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Memon said initial probe indicated that the blast was probably aimed at a bus which passed through on the road carrying staffers of the Sindh Chief Minister’s house which is ahead on the same route.
“All we know is that since these peace talks with the Tehreek-e-Taliban there has been a surge in terrorist attacks in Karachi,” Memon said.
Police official Umar Khattab said it appeared that the bomb was planted in a parked rickshaw but detonated late and missed its intended target. “The mosque was not the target.”
Television footage showed that the blast caused massive damage with the wall of a nearby house completely destroyed and windows of nearby buildings shattered.
Geo channel reported that at least 10 vehicles, six rickshaws and many motorcycles were completely destroyed or damaged in the blast.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack though such incidents are usually blamed on the banned Taliban. The PML-N government and the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan are in talks to end the cycle of violence that has gripped the country since the last one decade.
The attack came a day after a senior Pakistani police officer, who had survived several attacks for his anti- militant campaigns, and three others were killed in a Taliban suicide bombing in Pakistan’s largest city.
PTI