KARACHI, Sept 15: A 12-year-old boy was killed and eight others, including a four-year-old girl, were injured in a powerful explosion inside a shop in Nazimabad’s Bara Board area on Saturday, police said.

The blast also damaged a nearby parked rickshaw and a neighbouring shop, the police said.

They added that the bomb disposal unit of the Sindh police found that the victim boy, Muhammad Babar, who worked at the Waheed Kabari House, had carelessly blended several chemicals and acids in a drum, which caused the explosion.

The boy died on the spot and other injured were shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for treatment.

An official at the Pak Colony police station said that the boy poured various chemicals that included hydrochloric acid, sodium chloride, sulfuric acid, caustic soda in a 20-litre drum and started blending them.

He said that some witnesses noticed sparks before the explosion.

He said the scrap shop was badly damaged in the blast that also affected the parked rickshaw and its neighbouring tea shop.

The shop owner was among the injured and he was being questioned for selling chemicals without due safety measures in place, he added.

“Among the injured there is four-year-old girl who was playing with other children near the shop. The injured are said to be out of danger,” said the police official.