Pakistan: 45 Killed in Karachi bomb blast

A bomb attack in Pakistan’s largest city Karachi on Sunday killed at least 45 people, including women and children, and wounded 50 others, police said.

The blast hit close to an area dominated by Shias, senior police official Ghulam Shabir Sheikh said, though he said that the target of the attack was not immediately clear.

“At least 45 people have been killed and more than 50 injured. The bomb also badly damaged two residential buildings. Women and children were among the dead and injured,” said Fayaz Lughari, police chief of Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital.   He said the initial blast was followed by a second, but it was unclear whether or not this was also a bomb.   Ethnic, sectarian and politically-linked violence in Pakistan’s financial capital killed at least 2,284 people in 2012 in the deadliest such violence for two decades, according to the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.   Salman Ahmed, a spokesman for Edhi foundation rescue service, confirmed the blast and said the wounded had been taken to three different hospitals around the city.   The unrest in the city of 18 million people comes with general elections due by mid-May. The polls would mark the first democratic transition of power in Pakistani history.   Last month Pakistan’s Supreme Court accused the government of doing nothing to prevent the violence.