KARACHI, Jan 30: At least three people were killed and a number of others injured as the Sohrab Goth area continued to witness acts of terrorism for the second day on Wednesday.
Three people were killed and two others injured when an improvised explosive device (IED) went off in the night.
Earlier in the day, a policeman was slightly injured in what police described as a firecracker attack on its kiosk near the Sohrab Goth flyover by men on a motorcycle.
The IED explosion took place outside an abandoned building close to Indus Plaza, behind Al Asif Square.
After the blast, police found a cache of explosives weighing around 300kg laced with nut bolts, pressure cookers and cylinder shells stuffed in a taxi car, police said.
As many as five IEDs were found in the cab and they were all connected to the dashboard. It was the sixth device outside the vehicle that exploded, an official of the bomb disposal unit told Dawn.
“Two bodies, one with the face badly mutilated, were taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, while limbs of the third man were strewn at the scene,” Karachi East Zone DIG Aleem Jaffri said.
Some police officials said the apparent target of the attack was a drug den.
They said some elements had demanded a bid sum of money as extortion from the den runners.
Following the blast, police cordoned off the place, requesting people and media personnel to stay away because of the possibility of another explosion, the DIG said.
It was estimated around three kilograms of explosives, laced with nuts and bolts, went off.
“On searching the taxi, police found two iron boxes containing nuts, bolts, nails and explosives, two cylinder shells filled with explosives and a pressure cooker laced with nuts and bolts, five detonators, a wire and two remote-control circuits,” the DIG said.
On Tuesday the Sohrab Goth police station had come under an armed attack. A policeman had died and two others were injured in the attack.
Unconfirmed reports suggested that two suspects had been freed from the lock-up during the attack, but Mr Jaffri said the attackers could not enter the premises and had fled from the gate.
On Monday, a kiosk of Sohrab Goth police was attacked by a mob and two motorcycles, a police van and a car was set ablaze.
In the second half of last year, two health workers associated with the polio eradication campaign had been killed while two others injured in attacks in the same area.
