KARACHI: Peace, it seems, remains elusive in Karachi as three cracker blasts rocked the sanctity of an otherwise calm Friday morning even as the Inter Services Public Relations Director General Lt Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa briefed the media about the Rangers’ accomplishments in the Karachi operation.

The crackers were lobbed at a police station in Gulshan-i-Iqbal, a girls’ college in Karimabad and a private school in North Nazimabad, causing minor injuries to a policeman and a student besides damaging two police vehicles.

There were three attackers on two motorcycles, all clad in shalwar kameez. Two of them sported beards, said police on the basis of CCTV footage obtained from a site near the Mobina Town Police Station, which was attacked before the two educational institutions.

In the attack on the police station situated on Abul Hasan Ispahani Road, one policeman, Asif Ali Leghari, suffered minor wounds while two stationary cars of police officers were partially damaged, said Gulshan SP Dr Fahad Ahmed.

The officer added: “The CCTV footage shows that three men riding two motorbikes appeared at around 9:10am. They came from a side road that links the police station to a residential area. They threw the explosive device into the police station and escaped.

“Investigators are trying to ascertain the identity of the suspects with the help of CCTV footage.”

A bomb disposal squad official said it was a home-made ‘cracker ball’ that also contained ball bearings.

Dr Fahad was of the opinion that it was an act of sabotage, which could be linked to the subsequent cracker explosions in other parts of the city, aimed at creating fear and panic.

After some time, another explosion was heard in Karimabad.

Karachi Central SSP Muqaddas Haider said that attackers hurled the explosive device from the Karimabad flyover. It landed near a PSO petrol pump before exploding, but without causing any damage to human life or property, he said.

However, BDS official Abid Farooq, who examined the crime scene, told Dawn that the explosion took place near the Apwa Government College in Karimabad.

It was a ‘cracker ball’, identical to the one used in the Mobina Town Police Station blast, he said. The SSP claimed, however, that the target did not appear to be the college, which was located at some distance from the blast site.

Yet another explosion occurred inside a private school in North Nazimabad, causing fear among students, staff and parents who rushed to take their children away following the incident.

BDS official Abid Farooq said the explosion took place at the Educators campus-I situated in Block-A of North Nazimabad. A Class X student, Mohammed Osama, sustained minor injuries on his face. He was taken to a hospital for first aid.

A BDS official said the device looked different from those used in the other two blasts. “It appeared so small that I’d liken it to a firecracker.”

Speaking to Dawn, Counter-Terrorism Department officer Raja Umer Khattab, who examined all three sites, said he believed the same group was involved in the Mobina Town Police Station and Apwa college attacks.

However, the officer was ‘sceptical’ about the explosion at the school, which was situated two-and-a half kilometres from the Apwa college.

He quoted witnesses as telling police investigators that they did not see anyone throwing a cracker or any other explosive device into the school and that they just heard the blast. It appeared to be a ‘firecracker’ that injured the student, he added.

The officer suspected the involvement of the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi or Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent in attacks. The ‘ball bombs’ which targeted the police station and the college could be linked to the recent attack on the Rangers checkpost near Gujjar Nullah.

“The explosions demonstrate that the terrorists are facing difficulty in executing lethal targets and have resorted to such tactics to make their presence felt,” he added.

Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2016