One killed, 11 injured near Karachi’s Memon Masjid bombing

A woman was killed and 11 people were left injured after an explosion occurred at Karachi’s crowded Bolton Market in Kharadar on Monday evening.

Victims and witnesses said that a van from the Kharadar police station, out on routine patrol, had just stopped in Bombay Bazaar near New Memon Masjid at around 9:25 pm when a powerful explosion took place.

The explosion was powerful enough to destroy half the police van and several motorbikes parked around it in addition to damaging a rickshaw and shattering windowpanes of the buildings nearby.

The explosion also caused a fire to erupt, which locals doused on a self-help basis.

Ambulances rushed to the scene and evacuated around a dozen injured people to Civil Hospital where doctors pronounced one woman dead. The 11 others were provided with medical treatment.

Soon after the blast, a large contingent of rescue workers, police, and other law enforcement agencies rushed to the spot and cordoned off the area. Officials from the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) and the Bomb Disposal Squad also arrived on the scene, which is just a few hundred meters from the City Police Office (CPO), and have been examining the area.

During a press briefing on the spot, CTD Transnational Terrorist Intelligence Group Chief Raja Umar Khattab said ball bearings and IED were used in the explosive material which was planted in the motorcycle, suspecting similarities with the Saddar blast earlier this week.

“The target was a police van and it is being expected that it was a remote control blast as the target was moving,” he added while talking to SAMAA TV.