A bomb explosion near a Shia Muslim place of worship killed at least three people and wounded 14 others in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi late Sunday, police said.
The attack took place just two days after Pakistan beefed up security across the country to prevent sectarian violence between majority Sunni Muslims and minority Shias at the start of the Muslim holy month of Muharram.
“The bomb was planted on a motorbike near a Shias’ imambargah in Abbas town area, which exploded with a big bang killing at least three people and wounding 14 others,” senior local police official, Shahid Hayat, said.
Another police official, Aslam Khan, confirmed the incident: “We had information about possible attacks by terrorists and this was confirmed during interrogation of terrorists whom we had recently arrested.”
Khan said that a remote-controlled device had been used in the attack.
On Friday Pakistan had temporarily shut down the city’s mobile phone networks —fearing mobile phones could be used to co-ordinate attacks and trigger remote-controlled bombs.
Its largest city Karachi is in the grip of a long-running wave of political and sectarian violence involving Sunni and Shias, who account for around 20% of the country’s 167mn population.
Nationwide sectarian violence between the two groups is estimated to have killed more than 4,000 people since the late 1990s.
On Tuesday, police in Karachi arrested four suspected militants believed to be planning a wave of sectarian violence in the city, where 40 people were killed during three days of attacks just over a week ago.
Police said the four suspects are members of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a banned Sunni militant group blamed for many deadly attacks on Shias.