Judge Baqir Maqbool is taken on a stretcher to hospital in Karachi yesterday.
KARACHI: Bomb attacks in Pakistan killed 12 people and wounded 14 yesterday, including a senior judge who was critically injured in a blast in the business capital Karachi, officials said.
The first bomb targeted Maqbool Baqir, a judge at the high court in southern province of Sindh, in the port city of Karachi, killing at least nine people on a busy street during the morning rush hour.
Baqir was a member of the minority Shia community and had been threatened by militants, including hardline Sunni sectarian outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has claimed devastating bomb attacks on Shias.
The bomb, planted on a motorbike, exploded as Baqir drove past with his security detail on Burns Road in the centre of the city. At least nine people, including eight members of his security team, were killed and 14 others wounded. “The dead include six police officers, two (paramilitary) Rangers and the judge’s driver,” police official Ameer Sheikh said.
Police said Baqir was in hospital with critical injuries but was said to be out of danger.
“He received threats from the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Other militants had also threatened him,” Sheikh said.
Baqir has worked on several cases involving militants, serving as a judge in special anti-terrorism courts set up to hand down quick judgements in terror cases.
Police said 6kg of explosives were used to detonate the bomb.
Karachi, a city of 18 million, contributes 42 percent of GDP but is rife with murder and kidnappings and has been plagued for years by ethnic, sectarian and political violence.
Last year around 2,000 people were killed in violence linked to ethnic and political tensions, its deadliest toll in two decades.
In the northwest, another bomb attack killed the head of a pro-government tribal militia, along with his brother and nephew in Jani Khel, Bannu district, officials said. They said that Malik Hashim Khan had supported an army operation in the area, part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province which borders Afghanistan, in 2007-08.
“It was a powerful bomb which destroyed the vehicle completely. Hashim, his brother and nephew died on the spot,” a security official said, adding the bodies were destroyed beyond recognition.
A spokesman for Pakistan’s umbrella Taliban movement, Tehreek-e-Taliban, claimed responsibility for both attacks.
“We claim responsibility for the attack on the judge because he used to give verdicts against Islam and Muslims,” Ehsanullah Ehsan said.
“Taliban also attacked the head of the pro-government militia in Bannu because he joined hands with the government against the mujahideen,” he added.
Pakistan has for years been fighting homegrown Taliban insurgents in its border areas with Afghanistan. The Taliban frequently target tribal elders in the northwest, police and soldiers.
AFP
