A group of militants armed with grenades and automatic rifles besieged the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Monday, killing at least three people before being pulled out by special police forces.
The attack on the building located in the heart of the Karachi financial district, where the Pakistan State Bank is located, as well as the headquarters of several national and international financial institutions, left two guards and a police officer dead, authorities say. . A third guard is reported to be in critical condition.
Rizwan Ahmend, a police officer at the scene, told the Associated Press that after opening fire on a front door, the four gunmen entered the stock exchange grounds. He said that after the attack ended, food supplies were found in the bodies of the gunmen, indicating that they may have planned a long operation.
On Monday, security personnel surround the Stock Exchange Building after an attack in Karachi, Pakistan. (AP)
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The Balochistan Liberation Army later claimed responsibility for the attack. The group has been waging an insurgency for years, demanding independence from Pakistan’s gas-rich southwestern province of Baluchistan, which borders the southern province of Sindh, where Karachi is the province’s capital.
Inside the stock exchange, broker Yaqub Memon told the Associated Press that he and others huddled inside their offices while the attack was underway. When the shooting ended and the gunmen were killed, the police gathered all the employees and agents in one room while security forces went floor by floor to make sure there were no explosives left, he added.
Shazia Jehan, a police spokeswoman, said the bomb disposal team was also called to the stock exchange to clean the building of any explosive devices.
Security personnel examine ammunition seized from attackers outside the Stock Exchange Building. (AP)
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At a press conference Monday night, Maj. Gen. Omar Ahmed Bokhari, who oversees the Rangers’ paramilitary force that participated in the operation, accused neighboring India of assisting the attackers by allegedly activating “sleeper cells” that Pakistan He claims that Indian intelligence has planted across the country.
India and Pakistan routinely exchange accusations of using militant groups to attack the other country. The two nuclear-armed neighbors have waged three wars, two of them in the disputed Himalayan mountain region of Kashmir, which is divided between the two but coveted by both in their entirety.
The Balochistan Liberation Army, which Pakistan says has found security along the border with Afghanistan, has carried out several attacks in Karachi in recent years, including an attack on the Chinese Consulate in November 2018 that killed two people.
Security personnel search a car used by the attackers. (AP)
General Bukhari said Monday’s attack had the same characteristics as the Chinese Consulate’s attack, with the level of coordination and a large stockpile of ammunition found at the scene.
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Pakistani police and Rangers discovered more than a dozen hand grenades, ammunition boxes, and several automatic rifles that the attackers had brought to the stock exchange.
The Karachi Stock Exchange is the largest and oldest stock exchange in Pakistan, incorporated today with the Islamabad and Lahore Stock Exchanges.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
