KARACHI: Three members of the Sindh Assembly belonging to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) were among 25 people injured in a grenade attack on Friday evening on a camp set up by the party in the city’s Orangi Town area.

The camp was set up as part of the party’s membership campaign at the Orangi Town-5 roundabout. Two men on a motorcycle hurled the grenade on the camp, injuring the legislators and others, Karachi-West SSP Irfan Baloch said.

“We have received 25 injured people, including three lawmakers,” an official of the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital said. A 15-year-old girl was among the injured and none of them had suffered critical wounds, he added.

The injured legislators are Mohammed Hussain, Saifuddin Khalid and Abdullah.

According to the bomb disposal squad, the attackers used a Russia-made hand grenade and its splinters caused the injuries.

The police official said the incident had taken place in an area known as a stronghold of the MQM.

He said he had heard media reports that a militant group had claimed responsibility for the attack but it was yet to be verified.

Dawn.com quoted Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for the Jamaatul Ahrar splinter group of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), as saying that his group had carried out the attack.

He said the political parties thriving on an anti-Taliban agenda “are on our hit list” and his group had renewed its “war” against the PPP and Awami National Party, besides the MQM.

Published in Dawn, November 22th , 2014