Two suicide bombers on Monday targeted Pakistan’s largest procession of Shiite Muslims on their holiest day, killing at least 32 mourners and wounding dozens more in defiance of a major security crackdown.
The blast sparked riots in Karachi, the financial capital, where angry mourners went on the rampage, throwing stones at ambulances, torching cars and shops and firing bullets into the air, sparking appeals for calm.
Governmnet of Pakistan had deployed tens of thousands of police and paramilitary forces, fearing sectarian clashes or militant attacks on Ashura processions, to mark the martyrdom of Imam Hussain (AS) and progeny of grand prophet Mohammad (PBUH).
“The blast was so huge that I felt my hearing had gone, but then I started hearing cries of injured people and saw pieces of human flesh and blood on the road,” said Abbas Ali, 35, one of the mourners thrown to the ground.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik blamed Tehreek-e-Taliban, against which the military has been waging a major operation near the Afghan border, and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, another of Pakistan’s most feared Islamist networks.
“At least 32people have been killed so far in the suicide attack and 63 others have been injured,” provincial health minister Saghir Ahmed told meida.
Mohammad Ali Jinnah Road, where the attack happened, was ablaze with burning cars and motorcycles, and covered in debris from buildings attacked by rioters, said an AFP correspondent.
It was the fifth attack on Muharram commemorations in Pakistan this year. A suicide attack at a Shiite mosque in Pakistani-administered Kashmir on Sundaymartyred eleven people. Explosives wounded 17 people in Kasba Colony Karachi on the same day.
However, bomb blast incidents had also happened in karachi- paposh nagar and Imam Bargah in Rawalpindi.
Police said two suspects were arrested at the bomb site, and said a sketch of the bomber would be issued based on the discovery of his severed head.
A spokesman for the paramilitary Rangers said one of their members died as he pinned down the suicide bomber, claiming that otherwise the blast would have inflicted far more casualties.
“Our soldier Abdul Razzaq spotted the suicide bomber and jumped on him and both fell to the road after which the bomber exploded himself,” spokesman Major Mohammad Aurangzeb told AFP.
After the attack, furious mourners set ablaze dozens of shops and vehicles, beating up police and paramilitary Ranger personnel, witnesses said.
(Shiite News)