By Aamir Latif
KARACHI, Pakistan
At least 45 people were killed and over 14 injured after gunmen fired at a passenger bus in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi on Wednesday, officials said.
Inspector general of the Sindh province -- of which Karachi is the capital - Ghulam Haider Jamali added that three of the injured were in critical condition. The deceased included 16 women and 2 children.
The incident occurred in the eastern district of Karachi where eight assailants fired at a bus carrying 60 members of the Ismaili Shia community, said Munir Shaikh, a city police chief.
According to initial reports, six to eight gunmen riding motorbikes stopped the passenger bus in the Safoora Ghot area, a suburban part of eastern Karachi. They first fired at the bus from outside, and then entered, firing indiscriminately, a senior police official told Anadolu Agency.
Jamali said three of the gunmen who stopped the bus were, according to eyewitnesses, in police uniforms. The attackers used 9mm pistols and sub-machineguns in the attack as hospital officials said that most of the deceased were shot in their heads and chests.
TV footage showed the bus had only sparse bullet holes, suggesting that the attackers entered the bus and killed the people from close range.
The floor and seats of the bus were drenched with the blood as honking ambulances rushed to the scene to shift the bodies and the injured to the nearby hospitals.
A state of emergency was declared at city hospitals as doctors appealed for blood donations. The government has announced a day of mourning for Thursday, in the memory of the victims.
No group has claimed responsibility for the assault, the deadliest public attack since the Peshawar school massacre last December, which claimed 148 lives.
Armed violence against religious minorities have surged in recent years, particularly against Shias, of which the Ismaili community is a sub-sect. Shias make up 10 percent of the total 180 million population of Sunni-majority Pakistan.
The population of the Ismaili community is estimated to be up to 300,000 in Pakistan, with most living in Karachi and northern areas that border China.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, former president Asif Zardari, and heads of religious parties have condemned the mass killing, calling it a “national tragedy.”
Sharif directed the security agencies to “go all out” to arrest the killers and planners behind the attack.
Army Chief General Raheel Sharif has cancelled a scheduled three-day visit to Sri Lanka, according to an army statement.
