KARACHI, May 7: Violence broke out in different areas of the city following the bomb explosion that left 14 people dead and another 96 injured at a mosque in the compound of Sindh Madressatul Islam on Friday.

Mobs of shocked and angry people set 12 vehicles and 2 petrol pumps on fire at and around Numaish intersection, Malir and Al-Noor Society. A number of other vehicles were damaged after coming under stone pelting by the mobs during the violence in different areas.

According to witnesses, people started assembling at the Imambargah Khurasan, near Purani Numaish intersection. The youth among them appeared enraged and shocked.

Later, people in groups started pelting stones at moving vehicles on the adjacent M. A. Jinnah Road smashing windowpanes and windscreens of many vehicles. The Capri Cinema-Guru Mandir section of the road was blocked due to violence which spread to Soldier Bazaar also.

A petrol station at Purani Numaish was set ablaze as the situation deteriorated. Four cars being filled with fuel there were also set on fire. The mob intercepted another four vehicles in the violence-hit section of the road and torched them, the witnesses said.

Police tossed teargas shells and applied baton-charge to disperse the mobs. A senior police official claimed: "Some of the youths opened fire at the police, but no one was wounded."

Reports of disturbance were also received from Jaffar Tayyar Society in Malir, Rizvia Society in Nazimabad, Ancholi in Federal B Area, and Shah Faisal Colony, where moving vehicles were attacked with stones by youths.

Protesters in Malir blocked the nearby section of the National Highway. They also staged a sit-in on rail tracks causing disruption in rail traffic and disturbing several trains' schedule.

A group of angry people near the Sindh Madressatul Islam started raising slogans against the government, police and Rangers. The vehicles belonging to the DIG Operations and TPO Saddar who happened to be there, were attacked by the charged protesters. However, after deployment of police personnel at the scene, the situation returned to normal. Later, the police officers inspected the scene of the incident.

Shops, markets, offices and other business establishments in Boulten Market, Lighthouse and the adjoining areas were closed immediately after the blast. At civil hospital many blast victims were seen receiving treatment at the emergency ward and several of them, with burns, were lying in corridors.

They had to wait for about half-an-hour before being attended by medical staff there as many other victims with profusely bleeding wounds had been shifted to beds first.

The patients were eventually shifted to Burns, Medical and Orthopaedics wards. Anxious relatives of the blast victims had crowded the emergency ward and were desperately seeking information about the wellbeing of their loved ones.

An unspecified number of patients at the civil hospital were moved by their relatives to private hospitals, including the OMI, Liaquat National Hospital, Aga Khan Hospital and A.O. Clinic.

Most of them appeared to be employees of banks and other financial institutions which have these hospitals on their panel. Amid pathetic scenes at and outside the civil hospital, certain NGOs were make announcements, using megaphones, for blood-donation. Rizwan Edhi, spokesman for the Edhi Foundation, said about 5,000 bottles of blood had been donated at different hospitals.