Gunmen on Friday shot dead eight passengers on a bus near Karachi and injured three others in an incident termed an attempted robbery by the police while the transporters association called it terrorism. The attack took place on the highway near the town of Qazi Ahmad, 200 miles northeast of Karachi. “At least seven people were killed and three others were wounded in the bus firing,” senior police official Sanaullah Abbasi told AFP by telephone. He said the bus was going from Karachi to Attock in Punjab. Two men boarded the bus just before Qazi Ahmad and later asked the driver to stop. Two accomplices were waiting on motorbikes. They opened fire, then fled.
“We are investigating the incident and initially it appears to be a case of failed robbery,” he said. Awami Tehreek President Ayaz Latif Palijo called the attack a ‘conspiracy’. Palijo has contacted the Awami National Party (ANP) and Punjabi Pakhtun Ittehad (PPI) to foil the ‘conspiracy”. “The elements fanning the conspiracy want only hatred and bloodshed,” Palijo said. The ill-fated As-Sanabor bus left from its terminal located near Sea Breeze Plaza, Karachi at 7am for Abbottabad. When it was passing through Qazi Ahmed, six gunmen opened indiscriminate firing at the bus, killing eight people including driver Haji Abdul Ghaffar and injuring three others, according to DIG Sanaullah Abbasi. According to witnesses, two passengers ascended the bus from Sakrand who pointed guns at the driver as the bus was approaching Qazi Ahmed. They also allowed some people to get down the bus and soon afterwards, opened reckless fire at the panicked passengers. Kamran Minhas, spokesman of Air-Conditioned Coach Service Association, said the police officials were trying to paint this terror incident as a dacoity.