KARACHI, Sept 27: Eleven people were injured when a bomb went off in a minibus on M.A. Jinnah Road near Capri Cinema on Saturday evening.

Police and witnesses said a minibus of route W-11 (JE-2884) was heading towards North Karachi from the Mereweather Tower. When it reached near the Bundoo Khan restaurant, a bomb exploded in it with a bang.

The minibus suddenly stopped and the vehicles following it ploughed into each other. Pedestrians and motorists on the crowded thoroughfare ran for cover.

Police and ambulances shifted the injured to a hospital. The road was closed for vehicular traffic for some time and the traffic was diverted to alternative routes.

A police official said seven people were sent to the Civil Hospital and four to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre where condition of most of them was stated to be out of danger.

He said the bomb was of low intensity and it was planted beneath the third row from the front. The minibus driver escaped from the scene, he added.

DIG police operations Tariq Jamil said that similar explosions in minibuses had occurred in the past and Saturday’s blast was apparently aimed at creating harassment in the metropolis and destroying the peaceful atmosphere.