CHHIPA AMBULANCES at Bomb blast site during the Moharram procession in Karachi, December 28, 2009
A suicide bomber on Monday struck Pakistan’s largest procession of Shia Muslims on the holiest day in their calendar, killing at least 27 people and wounding dozens more, defying a major security clampdown.
The blast unleashed pandemonium at M A Jinnah Road, one of the biggest boulevards in Karachi, where angry mourners threw stones and opened fire into the air, sparking appeals from the authorities for calm.
Tens of thousands of police and paramilitary forces had been deployed, fearing sectarian clashes or militant bombings would target the Shia faithful who whip themselves to mourn the seventh-century killing of Imam Hussein.
“It was a suicide attack. He was walking with the procession and he blew himself up,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik told a private television, appealing on the Shia community to suspend their commemorations.
At least 30 people were killed and about 70 wounded as a suicide bomber blew himself in the middle of a religious procession in Karachi on Monday evening.
The procession, which was passing through Karachi’s main city centre area of MA Jinnah Road, comprised thousands of Shia Muslims marching to mark Ashura, a holy day amongst Shias all over the world.
Shortly after the bomb blast, hundreds of people took to looting and arson and destroyed over 600 shops on the busy thoroughfare despite the deployment of over 10,000 policemen and para-military personnel. “We did all we could do. You cannot blame the government for any security lapse,” said information minister Qamarzaman Kaira, when asked to give his comments on the incident.
This is the first such suicide attack in Karachi in the past several months. The last major incidence of violence in the city took place two years back when a suicide bomber attacked the convoy of Benazir Bhutto as she arrived in Pakistan from several years of self-imposed exil
Kamal Siddiqi, Hindustan Times
Karachi, December 28, 2009