KARACHI: A roadside improvised explosive device (IED) went off minutes after the motorcade of Chinese engineers passed through the Steel Town area on Monday morning, police said.

No casualty was reported in the blast that took place at about 7.25am with the help of a time device.

Investigators believed that the blast was aimed at targeting the Chinese engineers currently working on different projects in Thatta in connection with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The police said the blast took place on the green belt of the National Highway near Bugti Goth. The motorcade of the Chinese engineers, who were being escorted by the army, Rangers and police, had passed before the explosion, they added.

SSP Malir Rao Anwar said that a pamphlet was also recovered from the crime scene in which the responsibility of the blast was claimed by a little-known group, the Sindh Revolutionary Army (SRA). About the IED, he said it weighed around half a kilogramme and also contained small nuts.

Raja Umar Khattab, an official of the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), said: “Sindhi separatist elements against the CPEC may be involved in it.”

He recalled that a similar blast targeting Chinese nationals had also taken place in the same area in the recent past.

The CTD official said that the previous bomb blast was carried out with the help of a remote-controlled device, which was detonated when a vehicle carrying Chinese engineers was passing through the area on the National Highway. The incident caused minor injuries to a local driver of the foreigners besides damaging the vehicles, he added.

He said that the responsibility of that blast was also claimed by the SRA.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2017