11 killed in attack on Pak stock exchange; militants gunned down
KARACHI: Four heavily armed militants attacked the busy Pakistan Stock Exchange building here with guns and grenades on Monday morning, killing four security guards and a police officer before being shot dead in an exchange of fire, authorities said. Two civilians were also killed in the attack.
Separatist insurgents from Balochistan province — the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) — claimed responsibility in a post on Twitter.
“We locked ourselves in our offices,” 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, said.
Javed said he was on the ground floor when he heard gunfire and an explosion and people scattered for safety.
The police chief in Pakistan’s biggest city and financial hub, Ghulam Nabi Memon, told Reuters the gunmen attacked with grenades and guns after pulling up in a silver Corolla car.
They threw a grenade at security men posted outside the compound then opened fire on a security post. The four were killed when security forces posted there responded, Deputy Inspector General of Police Sharjil Kharal told media.
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.
President Arif Alvi and Prime Minister Imran Khan condemned the terrorist attack and said that the country is determined to root out terrorism from its soil. President Alvi, in a statement, said that terrorists will never succeed in their nefarious designs.
Separatists have been fighting for years in resource-rich Balochistan, complaining the southwestern province’s 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 Sindh.