Sindh Information Minister Shazia Marri narrowly escaped a “perceived” attack on her life after her driver self-assumingly defused a hand grenade inside the Sindh Assembly building on Thursday. The on-duty security staff was shaken for a moment when a female bystander uttered “bomb” after seeing, perceivably, the safety pin of a hand grenade in one of several flowerpots placed at the assembly’s main entrance.“Is this a bomb?” murmured the lady and distanced herself from the pot. The next few seconds saw the plain-clothed security personnel panicked with one running inside the building to call the bomb disposal squad. Unaware of the sudden panic, the information minister was preoccupied with her routine post-session briefing to the media on the day’s legislative proceedings. Even the otherwise news-crazy media persons could not notice the short-lived but nerve-wracking pandemonium taking place just next to them. But it was Marri’s driver who mustered enough courage to pull out the “grenade’s pin” from the flowerpot. “It was a keychain only!” an assembly staffer laughed out.
