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Journalism of Courage
Pakistani police today said an Islamic militant group angered over the recent arrests of key members could be involved in a car bomb blast which killed one person.
The car bomb, which left one dead and injured 10 others, went off some two kilometers from the Karachi Golf Club where thousands of people were watching singer Sonu Nigam’s concert late yesterday.
‘‘It appears to be the work of the same group, whose nine militants we arrested last week,’’ Chief of Police Investigation Department, Fayyaz Leghari, said. Nine militants of the radical group Harkat-ul-Mujahideenal-Alaami, including its key member Sohail Akhtar known as Mustafa, were arrested in a raid here last week.
Police said Mustafa, 35, was believed to have provided suicide bombers in two car bomb attacks outside the Sheraton Hotel Karachi and outside the US consulate in Karachi in 2002.
Eleven French naval engineers and three Pakistanis were killed by a bomb outside Sheraton Hotel in May 2002. Leghari said members of the group were ‘‘desperate and frustrated’’ after the arrests of their colleagues including Mustafa. ‘‘They wanted to hit the concert attended by thousands of people, but their attempt was foiled.’’
Following yesterday’s blast, thousands of Pakistani police and troops guarded key Western installations and blocked the roads to the US Consulate in Karachi on Sunday. Security forces were also checking vehicles for explosives.
