MULTAN, 3 March 2007 — An anti-terrorist judge was wounded and three policemen were killed when a remote-controlled bomb attached to a bicycle exploded in the central Pakistani city of Multan yesterday, police said.
Judge Bashir Ahmed Bhatti, who often hears cases against militants, was among nine people injured by the blast around 100 meters away from the court building, said district police chief Munir Ahmed Chishti. The blast wrecked the front end of a white car believed to be the judge’s and left blood stains on the seats and on the ground, an AFP reporter said from the scene of the attack. A police van was almost destroyed.
“A bomb of high intensity was planted on a bicycle in front of a basketball stadium near the court and exploded as the car of the special anti-terrorism court judge passed. It was a targeted attack,” Chishti told AFP.
“Two policemen died on the spot and another nine people were injured including the judge, six policemen and two bystanders,” Chishti added.
An injured policeman later died at the hospital, Dr. Fahim Javed of the state Nishtar Hospital said, bringing the death toll to three. The three wounded policemen are in a serious condition, he added.
Police cordoned off the scene and bomb disposal squad officers collected evidence and fragments of the bomb. “It was a locally made high-intensity device,” a bomb disposal officer said.
The bomb was thought to have been detonated by remote control, regional police chief Mohammad Ali said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Dr. Javed said Bhatti was in a critical condition and identified the other two who died as Mohammed Iqbal, Bhatti’s driver, and Ijaz Ahmed, a policeman who was escorting the judge’s car on a motorcycle. Both died at the scene of the attack. Mirza Mohammed Ali, another police officer, said Bhatti was hearing the case of Malik Ishaq, a leader of the outlawed Sipah-e-Sahaba, who is implicated in sectarian attacks.
Ishaq was arrested two years ago and is accused of killing several Shiites, Mohammed Ali said, although he had no details of the charges against the suspect.
The blast comes nearly two weeks after a suicide bomber blew himself up in a packed courtroom in the southwestern city of Quetta, killing 15 people including the city’s senior civil judge.
Pakistan has been rocked by a series of terror attacks this year blamed on pro-Taleban militants seeking revenge for an airstrike on an alleged Al-Qaeda compound in a remote tribal region bordering Afghanistan.
