Blast flattens ‘safe house’ of militants in Karachi
KARACHI: A portion of a house was flattened here on Friday morning in what was described as an accidental blast that claimed the lives of six militants.
“We heard a loud bang at about 7:45am and saw two bodies lying in the debris. A Kalashnikov rifle was beside the bodies,” a witness told Dawn.
Police found a cache of arms and ammunition and suicide vests strapped to the two bodies in the house in Baldia Town. The suicide vests were fitted with grenades, they added.
Apparently the suicide vest of the third militant accidentally triggered the explosion, causing a grenade to explode, investigators said, adding that the blast also caused a small crater.
“The vests were not meant for causing maximum damage because these didn’t have high degree of explosives. The vests were supposed to be used as a last resort in case they were apprehended,” an investigator said.
The Saeedabad Police Training College is located at a walking distance from the scene of the blast.
Although police claimed that Interior Minister Rehman Malik was their target, some investigators believed that the militants were planning an attack similar to the one on Manawa police training school, in Lahore, on March 30 last year.
The nature of weapons found in the house showed that the terrorists had prepared themselves for a long haul, the investigators added.
Police found in the house several cartons of tinned food, jihadi literature, books and CDs, stickers of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and Sipah-i-Sahaba pasted inside a trunk containing certifications of graduation from a seminary, cell phones and several SIMs.
Three AK-47 rifles with several dozen rounds, over 25 hand grenades, anti-personnel mines and a pistol were seized, Baldia town SP Zahid Husain said.
According to an initial investigation, the six militants had come to the house at about 3am on three motorcycles. They were guests of Ayaz, younger brother of Riaz who was living in the house with his mother, wife and three children.
All the militants were in their late teens or early twenties.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik told journalists that the militants were from Swat.
Five of the dead militants were identified as Riazul Hasan, Mohammad Husain, Shahbaz Lahori, Asif and Zahid. Ayaz was also killed in the blast, while his brother Ibrar was injured.
Riaz’s mother, wife and two children were in another room at the time of the blast.
The investigators said Khalid, the sixth guest, had walked away from the scene with shrapnel injuries in his legs.
He went to his house, changed and then went to the Civil Hospital. The nature of his injuries prompted doctors to inform police, who arrested him.
The three-room house, located in Sector 8-B, was rented by Riaz two years ago. Maulana Saeed, a peshimam of a nearby mosque, had brokered the deal with the owner of the house, Abdul Rehman, a police officer said.
Riaz, who supplies garments to the Zainab Market, told police that he had gone to a nearby shop, along with his daughter, to buy biscuits. He said he rushed to the house after hearing the blast.
Riaz and members of his family were detained by police for questioning.
Police said that two women who had taken refuge in the nearby Babari Masjid-o-Madressah soon after the blast were also detained.
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