KARACHI, May 8: Fourteen people, including 11 French nationals, were killed and 18 others, including 10 foreigners, were injured, some of them seriously, when a “suicide bomber”, riding in a red Toyota Corolla, drove up to a Pakistan Navy bus and exploded some incendiary device in front of Sheraton Hotel on Wednesday morning.

Witnesses said when the Pakistan Navy bus was about to move from the front of Sheraton Hotel on Club Road, a red car pulled up next to the bus and blew up with an enormous bang, destroying the bus and causing extensive damage to the shops and offices located on the ground floor of Pearl Continental and Sheraton Hotel.

An Edhi Foundation press statement later claimed that two minor beggars, identified as Maqsood, 12, and Sikandar, 5, were also killed in the explosion, which raises death toll to 16. The two bodies were taken away by their relatives to their Hijrat Colony homes.

Police said a bus of the Pakistan Navy, carrying 34 passengers, including French engineers and technicians of the French state-owned shipbuilding company, Direction de la Construction Navale, working with the Pakistan Navy on a submarine project at the Karachi Port, first picked up some employees from Avari Hotel and then came to Sheraton Hotel to pick up those lodged there. As the bus was about to leave, a car stopped beside it and exploded with a bang.

Eight of the 14 who died in the explosion were identified as Leclerc Jean Yves, Bled Cedric, Groux Pascal, Le Carpentier Daniel, Chevassut Jean Michel, Leconte Pascal, Drouet Claude and Dupont Bernard (all French nationals). A Pakistani woman was also among the dead.

Those injured were identified as Leveziel Laurent, Weegall Jean Marc, Madec Laig, Zante Jean Paul, Waupenie Jean Raymond, Waurent Jacques, Donnart Theirry, Jean Pierre, Etasse Claude, Laurent Jaques, Michel Vinduard, Sanson Gilles, Labat Frederic, Kamran Fazil (official of PN Qasim), Haji Mohammad Nazeer (employee of a foreign consulate), Iqbal Shah (driver of Sheraton Hotel), Abdul Aziz, Haji Nadeem, Ali Haider Shah, Lal Sabir, Abdus Sattar, Zaid and others.

The vehicles plying on Club Road at the time of the explosion rammed into each other and glasses of vehicles parked in the area were smashed. People ran for cover in panic as if there was an earthquake, witnesses said.

Abdul Qadeer, a security personnel at one of the hotels, said: “I was on duty when a car stopped near the bus and blew up. The blast was so severe that it shattered windowpanes of the hotels.”

Frenchman Polidor Christophe, who was injured in the blast and taken to Civil Hospital, told Dawn that he was in the bus when the explosion occurred. He said he was a technical assistant and working with the Pakistan Navy on a project. “I am feeling severe pain in my right leg,” said Polidor, who was covered with bandage from head to toe.

A visit to the blast site showed that the windowpanes of multi-storey Sheraton and Pearl Continental hotels were broken and wooden ceilings of the ground and the first floors had damaged. Lobbies and rooms of both the hotels were littered with glass pieces and other debris.

The blast was so intense that the bus was thrown into the air and struck a wall beside the Darbar Hall entrance of Sheraton Hotel where a crack developed. The bus, which was hit in the centre of left side, was completely destroyed.

A crack also appeared in the front wall of first floor of Sheraton Hotel.

The engine and transmission box of the car used in the suicide bombing landed near the PIDC traffic signal some 40 metres from the place of the blast.

The battery of the car, its aircleaner and other twisted metal landed near an airline office and a departmental store located in Pearl Continental Hotel. Numerous splinters flew and landed on the rooftops of the Pearl Continental and Sheraton hotels and the roof of the PIDC House, across the road. Bodies of several bus passengers were blown into pieces and the parts were scattered all over the explosion site.

The police and rangers reached the spot, blocked the traffic on Club Road and shifted the bodies and the remains to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and Civil Hospital. Later, the Pakistan Navy and personnel of other forces and agencies also arrived at the blast site.

More than 20 Edhi ambulances reached the site and took the dead and injured to hospitals.

Bomb Disposal Squad sources said the device weighed more than three kilograms which caused massive destruction. The explosion caused a huge crater on Club Road.

Talking to reporters at the site of the blast, Sindh Home Secretary Mukhtar Ahmad said: “It’s an outright act of terrorism and sabotage. We cannot rule out the possibility of collusion between foreign and local elements. It is attempt to destroy peace at a time investment is pouring in into the country.”

Syed Kamal Shah, provincial police chief, said: “Involvement of foreign hand cannot be ruled out.” About Indian agency RAW or any other group, he said: “When we are not ruling out the possibility of foreign hand, we mean that we will look into all aspects, including this one”.

About the blast, Mr Shah said: “It was a car bomb which went off between 7:40 and 7:50 in the morning.

“The Navy bus which was to carry the Frenchmen was parked at Hotel Sheraton’s entrance. As they came out of the hotel a car drove next to the bus and exploded.”

He said that an initial inquiry and marking on the engine revealed that it was a 1973 model Toyota Corolla car. We have also found several parts of human body from near the wreckage of the car which indicates that they were not of the victims, but possibly of the suicide bomber, he added.

“We have recovered a photograph of two persons attired in shalwar kameez and a child. We are investigating this and the picture could be of the driver of the car,” he added.