Dozens Killed as Armed Men Open Fire on Bus in Pakistan
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - At least 43 people have been killed and many more have been wounded in an attack on a bus in the Pakistani city of Karachi, officials said.
The bus carrying a group of Shiite Muslims was targeted by gunmen at the Safoora Chowk intersection in the eastern part of Pakistan's largest city on Wednesday.
Sindh police chief Ghulam Haider Jamali said officials believe there were six attackers, who approached the bus on three motorcycles.
Testimony from those who have seen the bus, and footage of it, suggests that the attackers boarded the bus and shot indiscriminately while inside.
Jamali said that those killed had been hit by 9mm gunfire, indicating that handguns had been used in the attack.
Pamphlets left at the scene of the attack claimed that it had been carried out by fighters allied to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) armed group.
Jundullah, a Pakistani armed group that pledged allegiance to ISIL in November last year, also claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attack.
Following the attack, the bus was driven to the nearby Memon Medical Institute and Hospital with 62 people still inside - many whom had already died.
"When the bus came into the hospital, there were some people whose heads were hanging limply out of the windows," said a hospital official, on condition of anonymity.
Many of those injured were in critical condition, hospital official Salma Wahid told Al Jazeera.
"Their condition is serious and they were covered in blood when they came in," said Wahid, adding that many were unconscious when they were admitted.
Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, who heads the provincial government, said that he had ordered senior police officials to investigate the incident.