Senior policeman among four killed in Karachi

Pakistani security officials inspect the site of a bomb blast that targeted a policeman Shafiq Tanoli, in Karachi, yesterday.

AFP/Islamabad

A senior policeman who had survived several assassination attempts was killed with three other people by a suicide bomber in Karachi yesterday, officials said, in an attack claimed by a Taliban faction.

The attack happened near a tailor’s shop in the old vegetable market in a neighbourhood to the east of the city.

“The blast killed police official Shafiq Tanoli and three others and wounded 15 others including Tanoli’s three guards,” another senior officer Tanvir Ahmad Tunio said.

He said the target was Tanoli, who had conducted a number of operations against militants and criminals and survived several attempts on his life in the past.

A local senior police official, Raja Umar Khitab, confirmed that it was a suicide attack.

Omar Khorasani of the Mohmand chapter of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) said in a statement that his group were responsible, accusing Tanoli of killing “many of our associates”.

Mohmand is one of the seven lawless tribal districts along the Afghan border.

The Pakistani government is in talks with the TTP — the umbrella group for Taliban militants—to end their bloody seven-year insurgency, but the Mohmand chapter has rejected the peace process.

Karachi, a city of 18mn people which contributes 42% of Pakistan’s GDP, has been plagued for years by sectarian, ethnic and political violence.