Karachi blast: Grief, political workers follow injured all the way to the hospital

MQM workers, relatives of the injured had flooded the hospital's emergency room.

KARACHI: For some of the participants of “Safar-e-Inqilab-e-Pakistan”, the rally organised by Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) on Tuesday where promises of a revolution and instating an impartial caretaker government, their journey back home turned into a tale of unbearable loss and misery.

A bomb ripped through a caravan of around seven buses near Ayesha Manzil that was due to carry participants back from the rally towards Orangi Town area. Four people were killed and at least 42 others were injured.

The dead and injured were shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, one after another amid wailing sirens of ambulances that approached the hospital after intermittent intervals. There appeared no respite from the screeching sound of stretchers as injured soaked in blood were wheeled in for trauma.

“I was peeking through the window… there were commuters and passersby that occasionally showed us a victory sign and suddenly a deafening bang mingled everything,” said Farzana Ghaus with her trembling lips. She was one among the persons aboard and told The Express Tribune that her bus was right behind the two buses that felt the maximum impact of the blast. “I don’t exactly remember what happened next, all I could hear were screams and all I could see were clouds of smoke.”

Another rally participant, Nadeem Ahmed, said that he was atop one of the buses’ rooftop and calling out to his friends to join him when suddenly the bomb went off. “As the blast shook the bus, I jumped off,” said Ahmed. “I can’t hear from my left ear since then, please tell me about my friends.”

He kept asking about his friends from the gathered crowd, but no one could give him a definite answer.

The emergency room

As soon as the news of the incident broke, the MQM activists started to flood the hospital, a few of them raged up enough to incite the quantum of panic. Within an hour their number reached in hundreds, amassed outside and even inside hospital’s emergency, literally choking up the space for medial operations.

The MQM’s Rabita Committee members later arrived at the hospital and helped control the degree of chaos and panic of its workers. While ordering to vacate the hospital premises, the activists formed chains of hands to cordon off the area so that the doctors and paramedics could work with ease.

Lives lost

A 27-year-old generator mechanic, Rehanullah Khan, son of Hameedullah Khan, succumbed to his injuries at the hospital. Khan was unmarried and a resident of Surjani Town.

Thirty-year-old Tayyab, son of Bilal Ahmed also succumbed to his injuries after he was brought to the hospital. Tayyab, second among seven siblings, worked in a private factory as a labourer and he was a resident of Orangi Town sector 11.5.

Talib Hussain son of Ghaus Bux, 20, and Hashim son of Muhammad Safeeq were the two others who lost their lives in the attack. Hussain, who hailed from Larkana, used to work at a hotel. He was a resident of Ranchore Lines.