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| India-Pakistan |
| Six wounded in mosque attack in Karachi |
| 2010-08-05 |
| [Dawn] A hand-grenade attack inside a North Nazimabad mosque during prayers on Wednesday night left five people injured as the daylong violence which included arson attacks and incidents of firing claimed at least 22 more lives, raising the corpse count to 76 in three days. Police said at least two men in shirts and jeans and wearing helmets stopped their cycle of violence at the Sawari Masjid and Madressah Shams-ul-Uloom in Block N of North Nazimabad and one of them entered the premises. "The Isha prayers were in progress when he hurled a hand grenade which exploded in the middle of the third row," said an official at the Taimuria police station. "The men beat feet, leaving five people injured in the mosque. The injured were taken to the Abbassi Shaheed Hospital and their condition was said to be stable, he said. Allama Maulana Ghulam Ahmed Siyalwi, a religious scholar and senior member of Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistain (JUP), was among the injured. He is the patron-in-chief of the seminary attached to the mosque. The JUP leadership, meanwhile, ruled out any ethnic motive behind the attack, but said they suspected it to be a message to the party which had sought intervention of the army and the chief justice for stopping the Karachi bloodshed. "We believe that they are the same forces of Evil who have vitiated the scenic city's peace over the past three days and want to threaten the party, which only on Tuesday appealed to the army chief and the chief justice for action," said Tariq Mahbood of the JUP. Earlier in the day, panic and fear ruled the scenic city as gunnies carried out attacks in different areas and killed 22 people. The violence, which was sparked by killing of Muttahida Qaumi Movement MPA Raza Haider on Monday evening, claimed 76 lives by Wednesday night. Qasba Colony and neighbouring Orangi Town emerged as the worst-affected areas where gunnies roamed freely. Police force and Rangers were nowhere to challenge them. A front man for the Edhi Foundation said the charity's ambulance shifted more than 50 injured to different hospitals. Half of them were women and children who were hit by bullets while they were in their homes. Similarly, there was no let-up in arson attacks. Three houses in Qasba Colony were set on fire in the early hours of the day. More than 30 shops of cellphones in Al-Falah of Saddar and a number of carpet showrooms in North Karachi met the same fate. Nearly a dozen pushcarts parked on roadside in North Nazimabad and several shops in a shopping mall in Buffer Zone were also set ablaze. |
| Posted by:Fred |