Bombs away: Two cops, 19 others injured in grenade attack

SSP claims they initially thought it was an attack at the police station.

KARACHI:

Twenty-one people, including two policemen were wounded in a hand grenade attack in one of the city's most crowded areas - Mithadar, on Monday evening.

According to the police, the incident took place about 35-feet away from the Mithadar and Kharadar police stations on MA Jinnah Road. Witnesses claim that motorcyclists hurled a hand grenade at the market near the police stations.

Following the incident, the injured were taken to Civil hospital for medical treatment. The injured were identified as 50-year-old sub-inspector Ashfaq Ahmed, Aslam Hayat, 38, Tauheed, 45, Sadiq, 45, Anas, 22, Raees Ahmed, 65, Najeeb Hussain, 35, Muhammad Ali, 50, Danish, 16, Yasir, 10, Amir, 10, Saleem, 40, Rehan, 30, Waheed, 56, Qaiser Abbas, 16, Aslam, 30, Shakeel, 25 and Naveed, 35. Doctors at the hospital said that all victims had received minor injuries.

"Mithadar is one of the city's busiest commercial hubs and a large number of people were present in the area at the time of the attack," said Old City SSP Sheeraz Nazeer while talking to The Express Tribune. "This is why so many people were injured."



The police reached the scene of the blast and collected evidence. "Initially, we thought that it was an attack at the police station but we were wrong," explained SSP Nazeer. "They weren't even targeting a specific shop. It was more like a random attack on the Mithadar market."

Traders and shopkeepers claimed that gangsters from Lyari were behind the incident as they have attacked the market before when people refused to pay extortion money. They claimed that there were more than a hundred markets located in Karachi's Old City area and a majority of them were forced to pay extortion to the Lyari gangs.

"This attack proves that the extortion mafia still exists," said Karachi Tajir Ittehad chairperson Atiq Mir. "Unless the police and Rangers don't go where the gangsters are hiding to arrest them, these things will continue." He added that the Karachi operation had brought a temporary relief but the gangsters and extortion mafia were reorganising themselves, again. He demanded that the government should take stern actions against Lyari gangsters and extortionists.

Intensive care

Medical officers and paramedics at Civil Hospital, Karachi, suspended work in the emergency ward when unidentified people tried to harass them on Tuesday evening when those injured in the Mithadar hand grenade attack were brought in for treatment. According to sources, around 30 men who accompanied the injured started harassing doctors and the staff.

Medical officers stopped working and walked out of the emergency ward when one of the doctors, Dr Asif, was misbehaved with. "We can't work like this," said the senior medical legal officer, Dr Nisar Ali Shah. "These people interfere with our work and threaten us." Dr Shah added that the injured were being treated properly and no one was in a serious condition.

The police arrested six people and after an assurance from law enforcers, the hospital staff resumed their work half an hour later. They demanded that the hospital management should provide them with complete security in such situations.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 19^th, 2014.