Seminary blast: Three dead, nine injured as student brings a hand grenade to class

A witness claims motorcyclists asked Salman to carry a paper bag inside.

KARACHI: Salman Khan's dream of becoming a religious scholar and serving his community were cut short by a hand-grenade.

On Monday, the 11-year-old ran into his Quran class holding the grenade in a paper bag. Fellow students told him not to play with it and just hand it over to the teacher, but it was too late. The grenade exploded and left Salman and two other boys dead. Nine more were injured.

The only son of his parents, Salman's father Raham Dil said his son was his pride and joy. Dil works as an electrician and lives with his family in Bijli Nagar, Orangi Town. He has five daughters and a wife who are trying to cope with the death of their loved one. "Nobody can understand or feel the pain that I am going through right now," he said while talking to The Express Tribune. "The ongoing violence in the city took my son from me."



To achieve his goals, Salman was attending the Jamia Masjid-wa-Madrassa Islamia Tahiria in Frontier Colony, Orangi Town - an area considered to be a stronghold of militants. His teacher, Qari Muhammad said the boy had decided to continue with religious education and go to school too as he wanted a balance between both. He added that he was determined to achieve his ambitions

At the time of the blast, 25 students were busy reciting the Holy Quran. Salman and two of his classmates, 12-year-old Omar Khan and Zahid Zada, 14, died on the spot while nine others were injured.

"He brought the grenade inside the classroom and I felt something was wrong," said one of the seminary boys, Mubashir, 14. "I told him not to play with it again and again. I even threatened to go get the teacher but the grenade exploded before I could." He added that before he fell unconscious he saw other students scream, their blood spilling on the floor and the smoke from the explosion filling the room.

The seminary is owned by Maulana Muhammad Obaidullah and is being run as an institution which provides religious and academic education. Currently there are about 700 students enrolled at the madrassa. Most of the students are residents of the area.

The administration claims that they have never received any kind of threat and were still trying to come to terms with what happened and how it happened. According to the seminary's administrator, Qari Muhammad Faizullah, they were going to term this is an act of terrorism. "We do not agree with what the police is saying," he told The Express Tribune. "They are trying to make it look like and accident and we are sure that our seminary was being targeted."

An eye-witness believes two men on a motorcycle rode up outside the seminary and asked Salman to carry a paper bag inside. At the time, Salman had been playing outside the seminary. Khan Muhammad, the witness, said that the men asked the boy to give the package to a teacher. He added that he did not stop the boy as he did not know that there would be a bomb kept inside the paper bag.

According to the bomb disposal squad the hand-grenade was of a Chinese make and usually causes minor damage as compared to a Russian one. However, since it exploded inside a small classroom - a congested space, the damage was massive.

The police were unable to ascertain how the grenade made its way to the boy and then inside the building. Orangi SP Mir Sajid Sadozai said that it was confirmed that no one threw it inside the seminary but were unsure about how it got into Salman's hands.

No case has been registered till the filing of this report.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 29^th, 2014.