Explosion outside Pakistan Election Commission Office in Karachi; no casualties

KARACHI: A small explosion took place after a bag containing an IED was thrown in the garbage after it was found in the parking of the provincial office of the Pakistan Election Commission in Karachi, police said.

A senior police official, DIG Syed Asad Raza said the plastic bag containing an IED explosive device/bomb had been placed in the parking lot of the Election Commission of Pakistan's (ECP) provincial headquarters.

“The bag contained an IED with a timer and was set to go off between 9 pm and 10 pm but a worker cleaning the parking lot noticed the bag and threw it into the garbage outside the building,” he said.

He said a small explosion had taken place when the bag was thrown but the bomb, which weighed 400 grams and was attached to a timer device, didn't go off.

However, no casualties were reported in the incident. “The target was the ECP office and if the bomb had gone off inside the parking lot it could have caused casualties and heavy damage.” There has been a spike in violence in the lead-up to the elections and in another incident in the new Karachi area, two groups clashed with each other during campaigning in which one worker was killed.

The ECP recently announced that security had been increased and tightened ahead of the elections after holding an emergency meeting to take stock of election-related violent incidents that have taken place in Karachi, Quetta and other parts of the Sindh and Balochistan provinces besides the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in recent days.