KARACHI: Police on Wednesday launched an investigation after registering an FIR under anti-terrorism provisions against unidentified suspects over a grenade attack on an under-construction Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) office on Tuesday night that wounded three people.

Referring to a report of the Bomb Disposal Squad, South DIG Syed Asad Raza said the explosive device used in the attack was a Russian-made grenade. The South police chief said that police had recently arrested the brother of the ringleader of a gang led by Zahid Ladla in Lyari. He said investigators suspected the Ladla gang was behind the attack, which they believed had been carried out in retaliation for the arrest.

Another police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the JI office was allegedly being built on the site of a garbage dump, which was opposed by certain elements in the area. However, local JI leader Abdul Baqi, who lodged the FIR, said party workers had been receiving threats over their welfare activities in Lyari.

According to the FIR, the complainant said he had been leading the party’s welfare activities for the past three months in his capacity as the local nazim. He said that at around 10.30pm on July 14, he was sitting outside the party’s under-construction office in the Phool Pati area with his cousin, Mohammed Husain, 66, and neighbour Ghulam Mustafa, 41, when a man arrived there, threw an object and fled. The object exploded and, as a result, they all were wounded.

Published in Dawn, July 16th, 2026