At some locations, the bombs were hidden in vehicles, including a mini-bus and a motorcycle. At Banaras Chowk, a bomb was hidden in a junk market. A policeman was injured in the blast in Mangho Pir, where the annual pilgrimage at a Muslim shrine had begun on Sunday.
Ambulances of different rescue services rushed to the blast sites and took the injured to different hospitals. The explosions caused traffic jams in several parts of Karachi. At some places, enraged people took to the streets and started pelting stones at vehicles. There were also reports of protestors firing in the air at some places. There were also unconfirmed reports of a seventh blast at Pak Colony.
No group claimed responsibility for the blasts, which occurred a day after a suicide bomber blew himself up near a police contingent in the vicinity of the Lal Masjid in Islamabad.
Twenty-one people, most of them policemen, were killed in that attack. President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani condemned the blasts. Gilani, who is on an official visit to Malaysia, asked the “nation to remain united and support his Government in maintaining law and order”.
Investigators find head at bomb site
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani investigators scouring the scene of a weekend suicide bomb attack on police found a severed head on Monday as the leader of the ruling party said his government would do everything to stop the bombers.The toll from Sunday’s attack on police, who had been guarding Islamists marking the anniversary of an army commando raid on Islamabad’s Lal Masjid, rose to 21 as one of the nearly 50 wounded died, police said. The attack has raised questions about the new government’s policy of trying to end militant violence through negotiations and will increase concern about prospects for the country, a nuclear-armed US ally making a transition to civilian rule.
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