KARACHI, Aug 13: A woman and a child lost their lives while 29 others were injured in grenade attacks on two Aga Khani Jamaatkhanas on Tuesday night. Several improvised explosive device (IED) attacks also took place in other cities and towns of Sindh on the eve of the Independence Day.

The first attack on a Jamaatkhana near Karimabad killed the woman and the child while 26 other people suffered injuries.

“Unknown miscreants threw a hand grenade from a wall of the Shahra-i-Pakistan, which landed inside the Jamaatkhana, killing Shirin and a child, Salman,” Central Karachi SSP Amir Farooqi said.

He said the injured included women and children, but they were out of danger.

It was prayer time from 6-8pm and a large number of people were there when the terrorists attacked them.

Three people were injured in another attack on a Jamaatkhana in Metroville, SITE.

Area SP Fida Hussain Janwari said a cracker-like explosive device hurled from outside the wall landed on a table in the courtyard. Debris flying from the damaged table caused minor injuries to three people who were discharged after first aid.

Karachi AIGP Ghulam Qadir Thebo said there was a possibility that the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi might have attacked the members of the community on sectarian grounds. There were reports that a doctor belonging to the Aga Khani community had given crucial evidence against a militant who is on death row.

The Karachi police chief said the explosions in the rest of Sindh might have been carried out by Sindhi nationalists.

He said Russian-made hand grenades had been used in the Karachi attacks.

He said both attacks appeared to have been aimed at creating scare but one grenade landed in a crowded place and caused two deaths.

He said there was also the likelihood of an organised bid to spread fear ahead of the possible execution of around 30 militants in the province who were on death row.

Mr Thebo said there were around 300 prisoners who had been awarded death sentences.

“Explosions in Karachi, Hyderabad, Larkana, Nawabshah, Dadu and Kotri and an armed attack on MQM’s MPA Kamran Akhter in Karachi were part of the terrorists’ campaign to trigger fear and panic among the people,” Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Memon said.

Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, who is in charge of the home ministry, ordered the law-enforcement agencies to take additional security steps for Wednesday.

In Hyderabad, a man was killed and two others injured when terrorists attacked and torched Independence Day stalls in different areas on Tuesday night.

The attacks were carried out almost simultaneously in thickly populated areas and the arsonists got away without facing resistance from police.

Miscreants are reported to have resorted to firing on the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) Road but no one was injured.

At Hyder Chowk, armed men lobbed a cracker at a large shoe store and fired at an Independence Day stall across the road at about 8pm. Shops in the area were closed immediately.

In the firing on the stall owned by Israr Ghauri, his father Iqbal and employees Shoaib and Shamsuddin were injured. Shoaib, a resident of Latifabad Unit 12, died later in the Liaquat University Hospital’s city branch.

“They were four people, two of them on a motorbike. They also lobbed a bottle apparently filed with some chemical but it didn’t explode,” a witness said.

While panic gripped the area, Sunni Tehreek activists were busy setting up their own stall to cut a 66 pound cake at midnight to mark the Independence Day.

Similar stalls were attacked outside the LUH city branch and in Hirabad. Two stalls were gutted. One of them had been set up by a physically challenged man, Rafiq Rajput. According to him, two men lobbed a petrol bomb which burnt the stalls.

According to one Azeem, three men first resorted to firing into the air and “then threw petrol on my stall outside an X-ray laboratory and torched it”.

Bomb Disposal Squad officials checked the Karachi-Hyderabad railway tracks near the Water and Power Wing Colony but found nothing suspicious.

The local chapter of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) had also planned a musical night at Kohinoor Chowk and the district administration is scheduled to organise a fireworks show at the Civic Centre.

A pamphlet issued by the banned Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz (JSMM), carrying a message from its chairman Shafi Burfat dated Monday, called for observing a ‘black day’ in the province on Wednesday. He said a strike would be observed and appealed to all nationalist parties, writers, thinkers, journalists, Sindhis, and members of the Urdu speaking community to support the call.

In Nawabshah, panic spread after two men on a motorcycle threw a patrol bomb outside a general store in Mohni Bazaar. City DSP Aijaz Tareen told reporters that police had arrested one of the attackers.