30 drown as Bangla ferry sinks; Pak Exchange attacked, 7 die
Bangladesh’s Morning Bird vessel was hit from behind by another ferry during the morning rush hour; both, Taliban and the military blame each other for the attack in Sangin district
KARACHI: Gunmen armed with grenades attacked the Pakistan Stock Exchange in the city of Karachi on Monday in a bid to take hostages, killing two guards and a policeman before security forces killed all four of the attackers, security officials said.
Separatist insurgents from the troubled southwestern province of Balochistan claimed responsibility, a senior counter-terrorism official, Raja Umar Khattab, told reporters.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) had claimed responsibility in a post on Twitter but its authenticity could be verified.
Spokesmen for the group were not available for comment.
“They had come to carry out an attack inside the building and take hostages inside,” the director-general of the Sindh Rangers, a paramilitary force, Omer Ahmed Bukhari, told media, adding all attackers had been killed within eight minutes.
The police chief of Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city and financial hub, Ghulam Nabi Memon, told reporters the gunmen attacked with grenades and guns after pulling up in a silver Corolla car.
Two guards and a policeman were killed and seven people were wounded, Deputy Inspector General of Police Sharjil Kharal told media.
A counter-terrorism official told reuters the attackers were carrying significant quantities of ammunition and grenades in backpacks.
“We locked ourselves in our offices,” said Asad Javed, who works at a brokerage in the stock exchange building, which is in a high security zone that also houses the head offices of several banks.
Javed said he was on the ground floor when he heard gunfire and an explosion and people scattered for safety.
Bukhari said that the attack could not have been carried out without the support of “hostile intelligence agencies.”
“But at the moment we have to collect evidence to establish the supporters.”
An aide to Pakistan’s prime minister on national security matters, Moeed Yusuf, and the country’s foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, both said the attack was sponsored by hostile foreign elements.
The BLA claimed responsibility in a brief message on a Twitter account set up shortly before the raid, describing it as a “self-sacrificing” attack carried out by its Majeed brigade.
The account was suspended a short time after the attack.
Separatists have been fighting for years in resource-rich Balochistan, complaining its gas and mineral wealth is unfairly exploited by Pakistan’s richer, more powerful provinces.
The BLA’S Majeed brigade also took responsibility for an attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi in 2018.
Several projects linked to China’s Belt and Road initiative are in Balochistan.
This month, three explosions on the same day claimed by a little-known separatist group killed four people including two soldiers in the southern province of Sindh, of which Karachi is the capital.
The Pakistan Stock Exchange did not suspend trading during the attack. Its main KSE-100 index dropped 220 points briefly but later recovered and closed the day 242 points (0.7%) higher.
BANGLADESH FERRY: At least 30 people died and a dozen are missing after a ferry capsized and sank on Monday in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka following a collision with another vessel, rescue officials said.
The Morning Bird vessel was hit from behind by another ferry around 9:30am local time (0330 GMT) during the morning rush hour, when the country’s largest river port is packed with vessels.
“We have collected 30 bodies, including 20 males, seven women and three children,” Abul Khair, a diver in the fire brigade, told reporters.
“There were at least 50 people on board... Our rescue divers are still searching,” coastguard spokesman commander Hayet Ibne Siddique said.
The ferry — which departed from central Munshiganj district — sank as it was about to moor at Sadarghat, Dhaka’s main river port used by hundreds of boats to travel to the country’s south.
Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority’s chief, Commodore Golam Sadeqk, told reporters the single-deck ship was “not overcrowded” and sank “due to carelessness.”
He said the vessel had been cleared to carry passengers until September.
Witnesses told local television stations many passengers appeared to be stuck in the ferry’s cabins.
Divers were still pulling bodies from the wreck, in waters some 40-50 feet (12-15 metres) deep. The deceased were put in body-bags before they were laid in rows at the harbour-front.
Another boat would later arrive to lift the damaged vessel from the water, Siddique said.
Relatives gathered at Sadarghat despite coronavirus social distancing concerns to search for their family.
“I still don’t know what happened to them,” a man, searching for his cousin and another relative, told reporters.
At least 30 people died and a dozen are missing after a ferry capsized and sank on Monday in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka following a collision with another vessel, rescue officials said.
Meanwhile, a car bombing and mortar shells fired at a busy market in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand province killed 23 people, including children, a statement from a provincial governor’s office said.
Bangladesh’s Morning Bird vessel was hit from behind by another ferry around 9:30 am local time (0330 GMT) during the morning rush hour, when the country’s largest river port is packed with vessels.
“We have collected 30 bodies, including 20 males, seven women and three children,” Abul Khair, a diver in the fire brigade, told reporters.
“There were at least 50 people on board... Our rescue divers are still searching,” coastguard spokesman commander Hayet Ibne Siddique said.
The ferry — which departed from central Munshiganj district — sank as it was about to moor at Sadarghat, Dhaka’s main river port used by hundreds of boats to travel to the country’s south.
Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority’s chief, Commodore Golam Sadeqk, said the single-deck ship was “not overcrowded” and sank “due to carelessness.”
He said the vessel had been cleared to carry passengers until September.
Witnesses told local television stations many passengers appeared to be stuck in the ferry’s cabins.
Divers were still pulling bodies from the wreck, in waters some 12-15 metres deep. The deceased were put in body-bags before they were laid in rows at the harbour-front.
Another boat would later arrive to lift the damaged vessel from the water, Siddique said.
Relatives gathered at Sadarghat despite coronavirus social distancing concerns to search for their family.
“I still don’t know what happened to them,” a man, searching for his cousin and another relative, told reporters.
Boat accidents are common in Bangladesh, which is crisscrossed by more than 230 rivers.
The South Asian nation is heavily reliant on ferries for transport but has had a poor safety record.
Experts blame badly maintained vessels, lax safety standards at shipyards and overcrowding for many of the accidents.
In February 2015 at least 78 people died when an overcrowded ship collided with a cargo boat in a central Bangladesh river.
The number of accidents has dropped sharply in recent years as authorities crackdown on unseaworthy vessels.
In Afghanistan, both the Taliban and the military blamed each other for the attack in Sangin district. Details of the reported attack could not be independently confirmed as the area, which is under Taliban control, is remote and inaccessible to reporters.
The statement from the office of the governor, Mohammad Yasin, did not provide further details and there was no claim of responsibility for the attack.
A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yusouf Ahmadi, denied the insurgents were involved in the bombing. The Taliban claimed the military fired mortars into the market while the military said a car bomb and mortar shells fired by the insurgents targeted the civilians.
The army also said there was no military activity in the area on Monday and that two Taliban fighters were also killed when the car bomb detonated at the marketplace. Livestock that the locals were selling on the market, sheep and goats, were also killed.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani strongly condemned the “brutal and inhumane act,” and stressed that targeting civilians is against Islamic and human values.
“The government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan once again calls on the Taliban to refrain from war and violence and to accept the will of the Afghan people, which is the end of the war and the start of negotiations,” Ghani’s statement said.
MYANMAR CLASHES: Thousands of people in an area of western Myanmar where there have been clashes between the government and ethnic rebels have been fleeing from their villages over the past week after an evacuation order from officials.