Terror bid foiled in Shiite Mosque of Karachi

Friday, 24 June 2011 13:35

Karachi police foiled a terror bid on Friday by defusing 42 kilogramme (kg) of explosives fitted with two detonators in the Shiite Mosque situated at Jinnah Hospital. According to police, 42 kg of explosives have been recovered from a backyard of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center (JPMC) Hospital Emergency Center. The area is used to offer Friday prayers by the Shiite employees of Jinnah Hospital. The Friday prayer was organized by the Safina-tul-Nijat trust for the Shia worshiper of the JPMC as majority of the doctors and paramedical Shiite Staff were offered Friday prayers in the Mosque. Source informed that an organizer before the Friday prayer was going to look after the arrangements of Friday prayers at morning where he saw suspicious metal box and concealed it underneath bricks. The organizer who discovered the box reported it to the Security officials and a Bomb Disposal Squad was dispatched to the site to defuse the device. JPMC is Karachi's biggest government-run hospital in the city. Bomb Disposal Squad defused the device having ball-bearings, iron plates and detonators connected to it. Acting CCPO, Karachi Iqbal Mehmood told the media that the bomb was remote-controlled. As strict security measures have been ordered for Friday prayers, that is why they were able to detect the presence of explosives, CCPO said. "It was a terror plot," said a police official present on the spot. Police have started investigation. He added the explosive device was similar to the ones used in the naval bus attacks earlier this year. Another police official said on condition of anonymity that it was a remote-controlled bomb and that police feared it could have been detonated during the main Friday prayers in the afternoon.