3 killed in attack on Pakistan bourse
Print Edition
GUNMEN armed with grenades attacked the Pakistan Stock Exchange in the city of Karachi yesterday, killing two guards and a policeman before security forces killed all four of the attackers, security officials said.
Separatist insurgents from the troubled southwestern province of Balochistan claimed responsibility, a senior counter-terrorism official, Raja Umar Khattab, said. The Baloch Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the attack. The group has been waging an insurgency for years, demanding independence for Pakistan’s gas-rich southwestern Baluchistan Province, which borders the southern Sindh Province, where Karachi is the provincial capital.
“They had come to carry out an attack inside the building and take hostages inside,” the director-general of the Sindh Rangers, a paramilitary force, Omer Ahmed Bukhari, told media, adding all attackers had been killed within eight minutes.
The police chief of Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city and financial hub, Ghulam Nabi Memon, said the gunmen attacked with grenades and guns after pulling up in a silver Corolla car.
Two guards and a policeman were killed and seven people were wounded, Deputy Inspector General of Police Sharjil Kharal told media.
A counter-terrorism official said the attackers were carrying significant quantities of ammunition and grenades in backpacks.
Rizwan Ahmend, a police official at the scene, said that food supplies were found on the bodies of the gunmen, indicating they may have planned a long siege.
“We locked ourselves in our offices,” said Asad Javed, who works at a brokerage in the stock exchange building, which is in a high security zone that also houses the head offices of several banks. Javed was on the ground floor when he heard gunfire and an explosion and saw people scattering for safety.
The Pakistan Stock Exchange did not suspend trading during the attack. Its main KSE-100 index dropped 220 points briefly but later recovered and closed the day 242 points higher.
Bokhari accused India of aiding the attackers, by allegedly activating “sleeper cells” that Pakistan claims Indian intelligence has planted throughout the country.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
