Police registers case of Bilal Sheikh killing in suicide attack

KARACHI: Police has registered the case of President Asif Ali Zardari’s top security official Bilal Sheikh’s killing in a suicide attack on Wednesday, Geo News reported Thursday.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) East Imran Shaukat told that Jamshed Quarter Police registered the First Information Report (FIR) under Sections 3/4 of the Explosives Act and 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act on the complaint of the security in-charge of Bilal Sheikh.

The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is observing three-day mourning across Sindh over the killing of Bilal Sheikh in a suicide attack.

The top security chief of President Asif Ali Zardari was killed along with his driver and a fruit vendor yesterday when a suicide bomber blew himself up near his bulletproof vehicle in Guru Mandir at around 5:15 pm.

Bilal Sheikh, 45, who had been serving as the chief security officer of President Zardari since 2008, asked his driver to stop his vehicle to buy fruit from a roadside vendor.

As his driver, Irfan Zaidi, 35, was getting out of the vehicle, a suicide bomber who had been following Sheikh, came close and triggered off the explosives tied to his body, said Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Raja Umer Khattab of the Counter Terrorism Wing of the police.

The powerful explosion killed Sheikh, Zaidi, and an unidentified fruit vendor and wounded 12 others, police and doctors said. Khattab said that the vehicle under Bilal Sheikh’s use was not bombproof.

“Sheikh died due to the impact of shockwaves of the bombing,” he said. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack but suicide bombings are mostly carried out by the Al-Qaeda-inspired extremists.

The attack occurred a day before the start of the holy month of Ramazan, underlining the deteriorating law and order situation not just in Karachi but also in the entire country, which witnessed more than a dozen major terrorist incidents since Nawaz Sharif took oath as the prime minister on June 5.

President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the attack and expressed profound grief over the killing of Bilal Sheikh in the blast and said he was like a son to him. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif also strongly condemned the blast. Both the president and prime minister have directed the authorities concerned to provide best medical treatment to those injured in the blast.

Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah and MQM chief Altaf Hussain also strongly condemned the blast that killed Bilawal House Security Officer Bilal Sheikh and others.