Tahir Siddiqui

KARACHI, Aug 23: The town police officer of Lyari, who had also been instrumental in smashing several Al Qaeda and Taliban-linked groups and sectarian outfits, and a motorcyclist were injured on Saturday in a remote-controlled bomb blast near the Saddar police station on Sharea Faisal.

Panic gripped the office-going people on the city’s major artery as the powerful bomb exploded with a big bang and the splinters, spreading in the radius of one kilometre, also smashed the glasses of the FTC building.

The TPO of Saddar, Dr Amir Shaikh, told Dawn that the remote-controlled bomb, rigged to a bicycle, was aimed at SP Raja Umer Khattab, who was targeted near his residence in one of the few police bungalows behind the Saddar PS.

“The bomb exploded at around 11.35am as the police officer’s Pajero moved close to the explosives-laden bicycle,” he added.

At least four vehicles were damaged, two of them completely, in the blast believed to have missed the target narrowly.

Witnesses said the TPO’s younger brother immediately reached the spot hardly 500 metres from the police officer’s official residence. They said the victim’s brother took him to the Aga Khan Hospital in his car as the TPO’s Pajero (PD-7242) had been damaged in the blast.

Hospital sources said SP Khattab, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, sustained a wound in his neck either by shrapnel or a piece of glass.

They, however, said the victim’s injury was not life-threatening, though he was to be operated upon.

The bomb disposal squad said the remote-controlled device was a homemade bomb wrapped with nuts and steel balls containing one to two kilograms of C-4, a material 1.34 times as explosive as trinitrotoluene (TNT).

A bomb disposal squad official, Sub-Inspector Munir Ahmed, told Dawn that the bomb was rigged to the chain and pedals of the bicycle and the explosion created a one-foot-deep crater.

He said two vehicles – a school minibus and a Margalla car – were damaged to a great extent, while two other vehicles, including the TPO’s jeep, were partially damaged.

“It was really a very powerful bomb as the ball bearings and nuts spread in the radius of at least one kilometre,” he added.

The bomb disposal squad official said that the splinters also hit the glasses of the FTC building along Sharea Faisal. “Some pieces were also found near a filling station on Sharea Faisal,” he added.

He said a magnet control system was used in the remote-controlled device which could be detonated within a radius of one kilometre.

Saddar police said the TPO had a narrow escape as the bomb exploded just a second before the police officer’s vehicle got close to the explosives-laden bicycle.

Senior police officers said Umer Khattab, who also received Tamgha-i-Shujaat in 2003, had recently smashed a newly formed Tehreek Islami Lashkar-i-Mohammadi. A sizeable number of weapons, explosives, chemicals and poison, Jihadi literature, and hit lists of high-profile people, politicians, international and national NGOs and police officials were also seized from the suspected terrorists.

The militant outfit was stated to have had ties with Mullah Dadullah, Taliban Commandar Tahir and Sirajul Haq Haqqani.

They said SP Khattab, who was among the 15 SPs promoted out-of-turn during 2003 and 2007, was also behind the arrest of terrorists belonging to Baqiatullah, an offshoot of the banned Tehrik-Jaffaria Pakistan.

The police sources said that in a recent operation, the police arrested some activists of Baqiatullah and seized from them 10 RGP-7 rockets with charges, eight AK-47 assault rifles (kalashnikovs), 10 M-46 grenades, 40 H-36 grenades and five green Russian grenades.

They said SP Khattab also tracked down the activists of the proscribed Jundullah and Harkatul Mujahideen Al-Aalmi, who were involved in terrorist activities.

The police said the TPO had recently launched an operation in the mafia-infested Lyari, where gangs have extraordinary resources and weaponry such as rocket launchers, hand grenades, G-3 guns, rifles, 8MM guns, Kalashnikovs and sub-machine guns.