Under attack: Nine injured as hand grenade lobbed at police job aspirants

Law enforcers believe that banned terrorist groups are behind the incident.

KARACHI: At least nine people waiting outside the Khawaja Ajmer Nagri police headquarters to submit their forms for entry into the police force were injured on Sunday morning when a grenade was lobbed at them.

The incident took place at around 8 30am as people lined up to submit the form for which the submission deadline was Monday. The injured were identified as Khalid Irshad, Rizwan, Waqas, Sultan, Abdul Rehman, Rameez, Abdul Rauf, Khalid, Abrar and Mehboob Zameer. They were taken to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital and two of them were reportedly in a critical condition.

The explosion caused panic in the area and a heavy contingent of law enforcers cordoned off the blast site as the bomb disposal squad collected the evidence.

The victims said that two armed men wearing shalwar kameez threw a bomb close to the headquarters’ gate and it exploded with a deafening bang. “The gate was closed. The time for submitting the form was 9am and we got there early ,” Zameer, one of the injured men, told The Express Tribune. “If I knew something like this would happen, I wouldn’t have come early. In fact, I wouldn’t have come at all.”

New Karachi division SP Salman Hussain said security has been increased around the headquarters’ perimeter and law enforcers are making sketches of the culprits with the help of the eyewitnesses.

An expert from the bomb disposal squad told The Express Tribune that the explosives used in the attack was a Russian-made hand grenade. He added that evidence has been collected from the blast site and sent to the forensics lab. The expert added that it did not contain ball bearings and the pin of the grenade was found from the blast site.



A similar attack occurred late Saturday night in Orangi Town where unidentified men hurled a hand grenade outside the Mominabad police station. Nobody was injured in the attack as nobody was standing near the gate at the time. Law enforcers said that the culprits took advantage of the fact that the area was in the dark as the electricity supply had been suspended.

Attacking police stations in district West has become a routine matter - two Pirabad police stations have recently been attacked in a similar manner. Police officials suspect that the same group is behind the incidents and said that the culprits, most likely Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) are attacking those police stations. District West DIG Javed Odho told The Express Tribune said that police are closing in on the suspects and will arrest them soon.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 24^th, 2012.