5 Shia Worshippers Dead, 50 Hurt In Karachi Mosque Blast

Email this page Print this page

The explosion occurred at around 1300 local time (0800 GMT).

No one has yet said they carried out the attack.

Some reports said the explosion was a suicide bombing, but other witnesses said a man left a package among the rows of worshippers shortly before the blast.

Sindh Provincial government adviser Aftab Sheikh said many of the injured were in critical condition and several had lost limbs. "I condemn this attack; it was a barbaric act," he said.

The mosque is inside the religious school, the Madrassah tul Islam.

The government-run school for students aged between four and 18 has separate mosques for Shias and Sunni Muslims.

The victims were thought to be adults coming to Friday prayers.

According to witnesses ambulances have been ferrying casualties to hospital for treatment, and the scene is one of devastation and carnage.

A local government official told Reuters news agency more than 100 people had been inside the mosque at the time of the blast.

A worker at a nearby brokerage house told the agency: "Our office on the 14th floor was shaken. We saw plumes of smoke, blood and bodies."

Another witness, Kalb e-Abbas, told the Associated Press: "I was inside the mosque for Friday prayers when a bomb exploded. Something hit my arm and I saw blood all over my body."

Angry locals besieged the area shouting abuse at officials and police officers.

It is worth mentioning here that Pakistan is 80% Sunni Muslim with the remainder Shia. The communities have a history of violence. Earlier on March 2, Sunni radicals killed more than 40 people and wounded 150 in an attack on a Shia procession in the south-western city of Quetta.

And last July an attack on a Shia mosque in Quetta left around 50 dead.