Two police gunmen died on the spot and another succumbed to wounds in Nishtar Hospital here on Friday morning while 10 others were injured, including Judge Bashir Ahmed Bhatti of Anti-terrorism Court No I, Multan.
Two of the injured were in serious condition. The bomb blast occurred in front of Basketball ground, near State Bank of Pakistan building, police said. A remote-controlled bomb of high intensity was planted on a bicycle in front of the Basketball stadium, near flyover, hardly 100 metres from District Courts. As soon as the car of Special Judge Anti-terrorism Court No I reached there, the bomb exploded violently. As a result, two police gunmen died on the spot and another ten persons were injured, DPO Multan Munir Ahmed Chishti said. The injured were hospitalised, he added.
Dr Faheem Javed, in-charge of Emergency Ward, said that 10 persons named Bilal Ahmed, Jehangir, Nadeem Ahmed, Bashir Ahmed Bhatti, Faheem Raza, Khalid Hassan, Abdul Rauf, Abdul Majid, Ghulam Mujtaba and Khawar were admitted to the hospital. Two of them were in precarious condition. Three persons, Mohammad Iqbal, driver of police vehicle, Mohammad Ijaz and Munir Ahmed died.
The police cordoned off the entire area and the emergency ward. No one was permitted to see or ask questions about the injured persons. Eyewitnesses said that the bicycle was thrown up in the air to six feet height and fell on the car of the Judge. Blood was also seen at the site.
Regional Police Officer Mirza Mohammad, while talking to newsmen, said at the site that possibility of foreign hand could not be ruled out. He was optimistic that police would soon arrest the culprits involved in the blast. He said, "We had arrested all the culprits behind the Chichawatni plotting while the terrorists died on the spot".
Police found a bag at the site containing religious literature. He said that the police was confident that the terrorists belonged to the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and they wanted to kill the Judge of Anti-terrorism Court before March 5 when he had to announce judgement of a case in which many important persons of this group were involved.
APP adds: President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz strongly condemned Friday's bomb blast in Multan in which three people were killed and eight, including an ATC Judge, injured. They expressed their condolences to the aggrieved families of the victims.
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