At least five persons were injured in the aftermath of an explosion, the cause of which couldn’t be ascertained till the filing of this report, at a fuel station near the Board of Secondary Education Karachi’s office in Nazimabad on Tuesday morning.
A wall of Jinnah University for Women (JUW), located adjacent to the fuel station, also collapsed as a result of the blast, crushing two motorcycles parked by it.
According to an employee of JUW, Muhammad Khalid, the blast, which took place around 6.10am, also caused damaged to the façade of two laboratories, located nearby the collapsed wall, in the varsity.
Later, Paposh Nagar Police Station SHO Farhan Sarwar told The Express Tribune police had inspected the petrol station and found all cylinders intact, ruling out the possibility of the blast being a consequence of a cylinder explosion.
Saying that the fuel station’s management attributed the blast to a short circuit in the station’s circuit room, whose walls collapsed in the explosion, he added that police were further investigating the matter to ascertain the cause of the explosion.
Later, Central SSP Arif Aslam Rao said the site had been thoroughly inspected and cleared by the bomb disposal squad. He added that no explosive material or any other suspicious item was found at the site.
The injured, identified as Asghar, 40, Khalid Abdur Rehman, 36, Fazal, 45, Abdullah, 30 and Azhar, were shifted to Dr Ruth Civil Hospital.
Meanwhile, the JUW employee said the university had requested the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency and the fuel station’s management to relocate the petrol station, as 5,000 to 6,000 students studied at the varsity and a mishap could harm a large number of people. But no action has been taken in this regard yet, he added.
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