Eight killed in Karachi explosion

FE Team | Published: January 09, 2010 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

At least eight people are thought to have been killed in an explosion at a house in the Pakistani city of Karachi, reports BBC.
The blast happened in Balida Town, a poor neighbourhood of the southern city, Pakistan's commercial hub.
The blast's cause was not immediately known, but police said explosives stored at the house may have gone off.
In December, a blast at a Shia Muslim march in Karachi, claimed by the Taliban, killed 43 people and injured dozens more.
"There was a blast in a house in [Karachi's] Balida Town in which six people were killed. The house collapsed. We are trying to ascertain the exact nature of the blast," senior police official Abdul Majeed Dasti told the AFP news agency.
He said hand grenades and a Kalashnikov rifle had been found at the site of the explosion.
Karachi police chief Waseem Ahmad said explosives stored in the house appeared to have caused the explosion.
"It seems that the house was being used by terrorists. We are taking utmost care in removing the rubble," Mr Ahmad.
It was not clear whether the dead were residents of the house or were passers-by.
Separately, at least eight people have been killed in what appear to be incidents of targeted killings of mostly ethnic Balochis in parts of Karachi on Thursday.
The killings were apparently triggered off by the discovery of a beheaded body of a member of Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) in the old city's Lyari district.
Unknown gunmen then went on a rampage in the area, killing seven people, mostly ethnic Balochis, police said.
An eyewitness told BBC Urdu's Riaz Sohail in Karachi that two or three victims of the killings were sitting outside their house and repairing an auto rickshaw when armed men riding motorcycles gunned them down.
Karachi is dominated by Urdu-speaking people who migrated to Pakistan from India at the time of India's Partition in 1947 - they form the main support base of MQM.
Meanwhile Lyari district is mostly populated by ethnic Balochi people, who mostly support President Asif Ali Zardari's Pakistan's People Party.