In Pakistan’s worst sectarian attack in the past four months, six terrorists disguised as cops stormed a bus in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi and gunned down at least 43 passengers belonging to the minority Ismaili Shia community on Wednesday.
The gunmen chased the bus on three motorbikes before attacking it near Safoora Chowk in eastern Karachi. “About 60 people were on board the bus when six gunmen attacked them with automatic 9mm pistols and managed to flee the scene,” Sindh provincial police chief Ghulam Haider Jamali said. “Most of the victims were shot in their heads and chests.”
Jundullah, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban that pledged allegiance to ISIS last year, claimed responsibility for the attack. The banned group was behind several strikes, including a blast near the Wagah border in November 2014 and the July 2013 bombing of ISI office in Sukkur.
Army chief General Raheel Sharif cancelled his visit to Sri Lanka and rushed to Karachi immediately after the attack. “No efforts will be spared to apprehend and punish perpetrators of this terrorist act, their abettors, and backers,” he said.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who too rushed to Karachi, called the attack “an attempt to create chaos”. He called Ismailis “a very peaceful and patriotic community”.
Jamali said the bus was in a relatively deserted area on Karachi outskirts en route to an Ismaili community centre when it was attacked.
A survivor told police the attackers, who were dressed in police uniforms, entered the bus from the rear a few minutes after its departure. “We initially thought that robbers had entered to loot the passengers,” she said. The terrorists spared two children present inside the bus and instructed the rest to lower their heads. “One of the attackers ordered his associates to open fire and then there was a hell-like situation with all attackers indiscriminately targeting all passengers of the bus.”
The survivor said the attackers spoke fluent Urdu.
The bus’s wounded driver managed to drive the bus to the Memon Medical Centre, where doctors confirmed the slain included 16 women.
“All victims were shot from a close-range,” said Salma Wahid, a hospital official.
Wahid feared the toll could go up as many wounded were in a critical condition. “Their condition is serious and they were covered in blood when they were brought to the hospital.”
Rana M Razzaq, a security coordinator at the Memon Medical Center, told a TV channel one girl managed to hide and survived.
“Three or four others who were brought to the hospital have survived…the rest are all dead.”
Some pamphlets found at the attack scene claimed terrorists allied with the Islamic State (IS) had carried out the worst terrorist attack in Pakistan since January. “Oh soldiers of the (unbelievers)! We swear that we will make you and your families cry tears of blood and will not rest until we have cleansed this land of you and established sharia,” read the pamphlet.
Ismaili Muslim spiritual leader Prince Karim Aga Khan denounced the attack as “a senseless act of violence against a peaceful community”. He said his thoughts and prayers were with the families of those killed and wounded.
Wednesday’s assault was the worst sectarian attack in Pakistan since January, when a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a mosque in Sindh’s Shikarpur district and killed 61 worshippers.
