KARACHI: An angry mob set fire to a passenger bus after it apparently hit five vehicles that left two people dead and 10 others injured in Liaquatabad on Tuesday, according to police and hospital officials.

The police said that the fast-moving bus was returning from Mirpurkhas to Saddar when it hit a rickshaw and four motorcycles in Liaquatabad-10.

Only a day ago, two children were killed and three others were injured when a fast-moving water tanker hit them in the city’s Manghopir area. All the victims were seminary pupils.

The Tuesday collision left a dozen of people, including women and children, injured, the police said. They were rushed to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where one of them, 28-year-old Fahad Mushtaq, was pronounced dead on arrival, according to a hospital official.

During treatment at the hospital, an injured woman, Bilquees Hanif, 30, died, said an official at the Liaquatabad police. Among the injured people were two children and another woman, said Liaquatabad SHO Abdul Haq Qureshi. The condition of all the injured persons was stated to be out of danger, the officer added.

Meanwhile, the death of two persons in the collision involving half a dozen vehicles enraged the area people who gathered in large numbers at the scene, the police officer said. There were around 200 people on the spot, he said.

Some enraged youngsters in the crowd set fire to the bus, the police officer said. Fire tenders rushed to the spot and managed to control the blaze, but the bus had been damaged by then, said a fire brigade official.

The police arrested the driver, Ghulam Mustafa, who claimed that the incident was the result of a brake failure, said the Liaquatabad SHO.

The police later registered a case against the bus driver. The officer said the police also registered a case against over 100 unidentified people on a charge of arson attack.

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2015

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