| More detail on yesterday's report... |
Scores of people, including prominent Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal leader Haji Hanif Billo, were killed when a bomb went off at a religious gathering in Karachi late yesterday. Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao said 45 people were killed and over 100 injured but unofficial toll was put at 67. Abbas Qadri, Shah Turabul Haq and Irshad Bhatti — leaders and prominent members of religious parties were seriously injured. Police later confirmed the death of several leaders.A suicide bomber triggered off the blast when speakers were offering Maghreb prayers. Ambulances were ferrying the injured to hospital, witnesses said, adding that limbs were seen scattered in the area. Witnesses also said the blast sparked panic among thousands of people who had gathered at the city’s Nishtar Park to celebrate the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). Soon after, angry youths, some of them armed, went on a rampage, setting a petrol station and cars ablaze and firing on police and paramilitary troops as they tried to reach Nishtar Park, in the heart of the city’s commercial district.
The blast was believed to have been centered close to the stage where prayer leaders from Jamaat-e-Ahle Sunnat, had been standing. Authorities had taken tough crowd control measures yesterday, two days after 29 women and children died in a stampede at a mosque.