Rangers check-post attacked with ‘bottle bomb’

Karachi

A Rangers check-post near the police’s Anti-Car Lifting Cell office in Sharifabad was attacked with a bomb on Sunday evening.

Quoting witnesses, Nazimabad SHO Ijaz Lodhi said two men riding a motorcycle had hurled the bomb at the check-post located a few yards away from the ACLC office.

The explosion damaged the walls of the check-post, but no injuries or deaths were reported.

This was the third attack on a Rangers check-post in Karachi this year, but no
lives have been lost in any of them.

Police investigators believe that terrorist outfit al-Qaeda Indian Subcontinent is involved in these attacks in an attempt to create fear and panic.

The SHO the bomb disposal squad collected samples from the scene of the attack. The squad found that half-a-kilogramme of explosive with nails was concealed in a plastic bottle.

On January 29, terrorists had lobbed a bomb from a bridge near Saima Tower at a Rangers check-post in Block-B of North Nazimabad and fled. Police and bomb disposal squad teams reached the scene. The check-post was empty at the time of the attack.

The police were busy investigating the scene when a super market near the Liaquatabad bridge was attacked in a similar manner.

A police team rushed to the scene where they were informed that two men had hurled a bomb from the Liaquatabad bridge at the market.  No casualties or injuries were reported.

DIG West Feroze Shah said two or three months ago, a similar attack was carried out on the SP Orangi Town’s office and luckily no casualties occurred.

Later, terrorists started targeting Rangers check-posts.

He added that he had called a meeting of senior officials including investigation officers of the West Range on Monday (today) to review the progress of the probe into the earlier attacks.

Raja Umer Khattab, the chief of the Anti-Transnational Terrorists Intelligence Group, told The News that the modus operandi of the terrorists was not new, and they had carried out similar a attack on the Shah Faisal Colony police station a few years ago. In 2013, Khattab’s house was also attacked.

 Terrorists had lobbed two bottle bombs at his residence - one had exploded while the other was defused.

Khattab said terrorists used a one-and-a-half-litre beverage bottle containing explosives, nut bolts, a detonator and a blasting cap. A burning fuse took 20 or 30 seconds reach the explosives.