KARACHI: At least 13 police commandos were killed and over 50 injured in a bomb attack on a police van near their training centre on the city’s outskirts on Thursday morning.

The outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan which is engaged in ‘peace talks’ with the government claimed responsibility for the attack.

The massive attack on police force took place hours before Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan was to land in Karachi for meetings with security chiefs, senior government functionaries and political parties to discuss the city’s law and order situation, which brought the Muttahida Qaumi Movement at loggerheads with the PPP-led Sindh government and police authorities.

But before addressing MQM’s concerns and announcing measures for the ongoing ‘targeted operation’, the interior minister took up the larger issue and said that terrorism and talks could not go side-by-side, in an obvious reference to the Taliban attacks and government’s dialogue with them.

This was the third major terror attack on law-enforcement agencies in the provincial capital. Earlier, Rangers were attacked and a top anti-terror cop was killed in a bomb blast.

DIG Karachi East Munir Ahmed Shaikh told Dawn that the blast hit the bus carrying the Special Security Unit commandos when it left the Razzakabad Police Training Centre and took a turn on the main National Highway. He said the commandos were going to the police headquarters in Hasan Square for deployment “perhaps for VVIP security”.

Karachi South SSP Nasir Aftab said the commandos were to relieve their nightshift colleagues deployed at the residences of the incumbent and former presidents and the State Guest House.

CID police’s anti-terrorism unit chief Raja Umer Khattab said initial findings suggested that an explosives-laden vehicle was used in the attack and the bomb was detonated by remote control.

He said the police van had moved only about 100 metres from the training centre. It was targeted at the middle to cause massive damage. The explosives weighed about 25 kilograms, he said, adding that ‘banned outfits’ had expertise in IED blasts.

A CCTV camera installed there showed a man disembarking from the vehicle after parking it there. Since the camera was installed at a considerable distance, the images of the suspect were not clear. The vehicle remained parked there for about half an hour and since it was the main highway, no-one noticed it.

SSP Aftab was of the opinion that installation of jammers in police vans was the only answer to avert such attack. A jammer costs Rs1.5 to 2 million.

“Eleven policemen were brought dead and 58 with multiple injuries,” said Dr Seemin Jamali, joint executive director of the Jinnah Post-Graduate Medical Centre (JPMC). Two of the injured policemen died during treatment. The condition of eight was stated to be serious. Police surgeon Dr Jalil Qadir told Dawn that police brought in the evening a shopper containing “multiple fragmented pieces of human bodies” from the crime scene.

DIG East Munir Shaikh said he believed that the parts belonged to the deceased policemen.

The police surgeon said there was ‘extensive damage on the left side of heads and other parts of the deceased, but no pellet or ball-bearing wounds were found on the bodies.

“I was on a backseat and when the van took a turn, the explosives-laden vehicle hit us,” SSU commando Azizullah, who was injured, told Dawn in JPMC’s emergency ward.

“When I regained consciousness, I saw blood everywhere. I was so stunned that instead of opening the door, I jumped out of the van through a destroyed window,” he said.

Kamran Hussain, another injured policeman, said the bomb-fitted vehicle was parked and when the van crossed it, the explosion took place.

“We fell on each other and when I regained consciousness I took my wounded friend Ahmed Hussain on my shoulder and came out of the badly damaged vehicle. Meanwhile, our colleagues from the training centre also came and shifted us to ambulances,” he added.