Dawn.com invites its readers to share eye-witness accounts and photographs from the incident.
An explosion occurred on Karachi’s M.A. Jinnah road on Monday during a Shia procession commemorating Ashura.
For the city of lights, it’s the third blast in three days and the latest in a series of blasts that have taken place during the holy month of Muharram.
Photographs can be sent at photos@dawn.com
*In response to Dawn.com’s forum, an eyewitness, Waheed Zuberi, shares his photographs from the explosion during the Ashura procession on M.A. Jinnah Road on Monday afternoon.
May Allah bless the souls of all that have departed and give courage to all who have last loved ones due to this tragedy. I can not imagine the pain one goes through when one loses a child, a brother, a sister, or a parent.
What happened was expected, and the government should have avoided the risk.
I condemned this attack on the procession as a worst act against humanity.
This attack has not surprised many of us as it was widely expected that these militants are looking forward to the month of Muharram so they can attack the Shia Muslims. One has to look deep inside the animosity between these terrorist outfits and Shia faith. The bottom line is there is a group of people among us who have not accepted members of this community as faithful. They have target Shia Muslims in the past and they would continue to target them in the future. This is a reality and faster we accept it better it would be for us. We do not need any security plans to safeguard a community, we have to eliminate those misunderstandings among those who are committing these crimes. We must tell and educate our children about respecting the beliefs of other faithful, believers and non-believers. Government in conjunction with civil society and scholars must construct a way to educate students especially in the seminaries.
We have a habit to mourn over the things when those have happened, everybody is saying why government haven’t stopped or canceled the event.
My question is that if Govt. would’ve done that, would the public have accepted it anyway. I am 90% sure that they wouldn’t have!
Stop criticizing the authorities for everything and to point fingers over others. You also bear a responsibility towards society.
@ Amber, Please don’t try to defend the mob mentality! What is wrong is wrong because it only multiplies the causes of more negativity and revenge!
I am Muslim (sunni) but this act has nothing to do with Sunni/Shia. This is just plain wrong. How can anyone in their right mind justify this. Wrong and must be fought.
To all those who are advocating to cancel the procession because of fear, these animals are even targeting people praying in mosque, so do you think that people should stop going and praying in mosque.
I think that these kind of statements or thought is in favor of those who carried out these acts.
My humble grievance to all those who has lost family members in this procession, in any mosques and market, which is targeted by insane animals.
aLi
My condolences to the bereaved families.
Some one commented “How a Muslim kill another Muslim could is beyond belief?”
Is a Muslim killing another Muslim any different that a Muslim killing Non Muslim?
Only when good Muslims raise up against any killings done in their name or their religion, will this senseless violence stop.
There should be no preferable killing.
Very sad indeed and this kind of event shows Islam the peaceful religion of Allah in a bad light. My sympathies for the survivors of this carnage.
Only a mentally deranged people would attack police and ambulances who come to the aid of the injured.
These processions are a political statement of Good vs Evil. Banning such traditions will only help the evil. Ashura must go on……
I totally agree with Hasan. With the present security situation in Pakistan anyone could have foreseen an attack on
such a soft target. It is impossible task for the security apparatus to safeguard such a large gathering of mourners. The Government should have acted wisely and canceled this event till the security situation in the country improved. My only hope that sanity prevails and people get back to regular business as usual that is building a better, prosperous and progressive Pakistan free from religious prejudice and hatred.
I wish that this kind of ‘darendigi ends in Pakistan 2010. Ameen. How could a Muslim kill another Muslim is beyond belief?
The evil men of violence and terror who kill fellow Pakistanis for money, joy or hate could not be Pakistanis and the only logical answer is that they are foreigners and enemies of Pakistan and Islam.
My heart weeps every time I read or hear about innocent Pakistanis being killed by these evil men
These terrorists must be questioned in depth and asked what motivates them to take this kind of horrific action that cost horrendous death to many innocent human beings?
My sympathies to families who died.
It is verry sad to see this. A loss is a loss, does not matter if it’s Shia,Sunni Or Hindu or christians.
Being an Indian, I fully support the end terrorism in the world.
Hasan, If we cancel everything and sit home, that means that they won. As we both know the security of Pakistan is not going to improve, this is how our government collects funds from other countries. Shia community is used to of facing actacks like these. Our so called government didn’t took an action when Shai doctors were gettting shot and killed point blank 3years back. It is very unfortunately but this is how our country runs, nothing happens, the only action you will see is some silly angry guys burning cars and bus, just to get their frustration out, not thinking about the poor Guy who owns that transportation. To all the mothers please keep a very close eye on your sons,
I sympathize with the poor people who lost their lives and the not so poor people who were forced to become poor by the wrath of the untamed and semi senile mobs from the jaloos who gutted their shops.
The Pakistan law enforcement agencies should have forseen the danger and stop all large gathering.
It seems like some one is trying hard to create hatred between Shia and Sunni for long time. We the shia and Sunni masses do not have any animosity among ourselves but somehow these miscreants are blowing innocents time and time again. I am guessing the agenda might be to TURN Sunni Masses against Shia Iran and some Arab dictators are playing along this game for their own agendas.
The purpose of historical existence is togetherness.One wonders how loss of life ,ruin of a family discord of social can give peace to them who preach violence? Statism should not preach aganist pluralism.Pluralism of other country should be appreciated.This world should not be rined for the world which is unknown.
I remember with every death life diminishes,we want to live in interfaith accommodation.
May Allah curse the perpetrators of this inhumane act, whose only purpose in life is to bring bloodshed, and kill innocent people, sadly all in the name of religion, as well as their supporters in our society.
All muslims are together in this time. We condemn this cowardly act of our enemies. This surely has nothing to do with any religion and there are other political motives of foriegn lobbies behind such incidents.
It is bewildering that such processions were not canceled by the government.
Don’t have any idea how must I condemn the stupid, mindless and self-destructing acts of burning our own valuables by our own hands, after any of such incidents. I firmly believe that no ‘actual’ victim or affectee is actually left with any sense except the sheer grief and shock after any such incident, which can help him to retaliate by burning the belongings of others….
i totally condemn when media covers such incidents by labeling those as “Reaction from protestant victims (general public)”…these people (who burn vehicles and buildings) are no victims, rather evil minds …who don’t let go any opportunity to destroy the system and they react really fast upon the opportunity. There is a serious lack of education and civic sense in all of the country men, who support these acts, and to me this mentality (in our general public) is more alarming (in the longer run) than the suicidal triggers themselves.
Remember, the mindless suiciders are those whom we can’t control…but these people which ultimately do more damage under the shadow of a ‘highlighted’ damage incident, are the ones which (i think) we can control, by promoting patience and civic sense in our society.
May Allah bless the victims of this incident and give civic sense & patriotism (and I’d say…common sense) to these mindless protestants! Ameen!!
It is the solemn duty of every Pakistani, Sunni or Shia to condemn these animals. They are the lowest form of life……it is time we realised that there is no negotiating with them. They need to be hunted down and killed. Those who stand with them or even stand for “peaceful dialogue” also stand against pakistan, as far as I am concerned. The military establishment now needs to realise the failure of their “good jihadi-bad jihadi” policy and get serious about eliminating the militants regardless of the fact that some still consider many of them to be strategic assets in our nonsenscial proxy wars in Afghanistan and kashmir. Our country is bleeding to death, people!! Who cares about kashmir or afghanistan!!
It shows nothing but intolrance, manifested in our brains, for other religeous belives than our own. People who are against shias, qadyanis, christans, jews ect. dont think for a second that belivers of those religion also belive that there religon is the true one, as we belvie our religon is. All I will say is just live and let live. You wont be answerable to God for someone else’s religious belives…just worry about your “own” akhrit and do something good for humanity.
It is time Pakistani’s took their fate into their hands. Don’t let political terrorism win!