With five bomb blasts in three months, Landhi sure has enemies

Police believe suspects trying to divert their attention, or are going after law enforcers.

KARACHI: In the past three months, there have been five bomb blasts in Landhi and investigators can say only one thing for sure - the neighbourhood sure has enemies.

Apart from this, the investigative agencies remain clueless about which group is behind the attacks and what they are after. The death toll from these blasts is nearly 10. The police and the families have denied that the shopkeepers were being demanded extortion.

In September last year, at least four people, including a woman, were killed in two overnight raids by the Rangers in Landhi’s Muslimabad Colony. These raids were meant to target alleged Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) militants, but failed to do so. However, the investigators failed to find any evidence against the deceased and suspect that these attacks may be a result of those raids.

A Rangers official, on the condition of anonymity, told The Express Tribune that they cannot rule out this possibility but they can only say for sure once the culprits are caught. “Our job is to conduct raids and arrest suspects,” he said. “Investigations should be carried out by the police.”



Meanwhile, the Crime Investigation Department (CID) have reason to believe that the real culprits may want the police’s attention diverted from their actual strongholds, such as Sohrab Goth, Manghopir, Pirabad, Orangi and Baldia towns. “There is most likely one group that is carrying out these attacks,” said CID counter-terrorism and financial crime unit chief SSP Raja Omar Khattab.

CID Anti-Extremist Cell chief SSP Chaudhry Aslam Khan suspected, however, that the group is targeting law enforcers and their informers. “If we study all these cases, then we can see that they tried to target law enforcers and other who were suspected of being police informers,” said Khan. He agreed that the suspects can gain a lot by diverting the police’s attention. “They can ease the movements of their men and confuse us by shifting our focus from one area to the next.”

Even the bomb disposal squad agrees that the explosives used in the Landhi attacks seem to be made by a single hand. The bombs resemble each other and the same kinds of explosives were used, said a senior bomb disposal expert. “All bombs were detonated with remote-controlled devices and the modus operandi was the same also.”

Death toll

Quaidabad DSP Kamal Khan Mangan was among the four policemen and six others who have been killed in the five Landhi blasts.

The first blast took place at a Gharib Nawaz hotel in New Muzzafarabad Colony on December 12, last year, which killed police constable Zahid and the hotel owner. Later, the alleged terrorists targeted and killed DSP Mangan, who was heading the investigations of the Gharib Nawaz hotel blast.

On January 24 this year, another policeman and a passerby lost their lives in two consecutive explosions in Quaidabad when law enforcers reached the site of the first blast and were busy evacuating people from blast site.

The investigations into these blasts had yet to yield results when another blast ripped through Landhi’s Khurramabad area on March 10 and claimed the life of a paan shop owner, who was affiliated with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement.

His teenage son also killed and several others were wounded.

In less than a week on March 14, another blast took place at a cable operator office in Landhi’s Old Muzaffarabad Colony and claimed at least three lives including a former policeman Tahir Shah.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 16^th, 2013.