News4u-News Desk-Terrorists on Friday struck the Pakistani port city of Karachi targeting a bus carrying a group of people to a Shia religious procession as well as a hospital, killing at least twenty five people and injuring over 70 in the latest in a wave of attacks across the country.
The explosion targeting the bus occurred on Shahrah-e-Quaideen, a key thoroughfare in the city, at 3.05 PM local time.
Provincial Health Minister Sagheer Ahmed said 12 people were killed and 50 injured in the attack.
There was confusion over the nature of the blast.
TV news channels quoted witnesses as saying that a motorcycle-borne suicide bomber rammed the bus.
However, Karachi police chief Waseem Ahmed said initial investigations had indicated that an explosive device planted in the motorcycle was triggered by remote control as the bus was passing by.
The second blast occurred around 5 PM local time outside the emergency ward of Jinnah Post Graduate Medical Centre hospital, where most of the dead and injured of the first attack were taken.
A news channel quoted officials and witnesses as saying that 10 people were killed and several others injured in the second blast.
Several ambulances were also damaged in the attack.
Over 200 people, most of them relatives of the injured in first blast and rescue workers, were present outside the hospital at the time of the explosion, the cause of which is yet to be ascertained.
Karachi police chief Ahmed appealed for calm and urged Shia mourners to go ahead with the main procession marking the ‘Chelum’ or 40th day of the martyrdom of Hazrat Imam Hussain.
He said the blast targeting the bus, which was carrying mourners including women and children, had occurred at a considerable distance from the venue of the main procession and might have been aimed at diverting the attention of the security forces.
Security personnel cordoned off the area and gathered the pieces of the motorcycle believed to have been used in the attack. Health Minister Sagheer Ahmed expressed fear that the casualties could rise.
This was the second time that a Muharram procession had been attacked by militants in the recent weeks. On December 28, a bomb explosion in the main Muharram congregation killed 45 people and led to widespread rioting.
Friday’s blast took place despite heavy security arrangements in the city for the Muharram Chehlum processions in the wake of recent sectarian killings that took 48 lives.
The government has given the para-military rangers sweeping powers under the anti-terror laws to control the law and order situation in the city.
Pakistan has witnessed a string of deadly attacks since October last year when military launched an operation in the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan.
Hundreds of people have been killed in these attacks blamed on Taliban.
Men assist a boy who was injured in a blast outside Karachi's Jinnah hospital on February 5, 2010. A suspected suicide bomber on a motorcycle killed 12 Shi'ites in Pakistan's commercial capital Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2527140#ixzz0ejXovJh4 The National Post is now on Facebook. Join our fan community today.
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