At least eight people were killed today when a roadside bomb exploded in Pakistan's biggest city, Karachi, police said, the latest attack in a wave of violence in the South Asian country.
The blast occurred in a low-income neighbourhood close to one of the city's main industrial areas.
"According to the reports that we have so far, eight people have been killed in the blast and around 40 wounded," Azhar Ali Farooqi, police chief of Sindh province, said. Karachi is the capital of Sindh.
Farooqi said the bomb was planted in a motorcycle and was not a suicide attack. "It was an improvised electronic device (IED) and was planted in a motorbike that was parked next to a roadside cart," he said.
Dozens of people gathered at the site of the explosion and chanted anti-government slogans. Paramilitary Rangers were later deployed in the area.
A wave of violence has killed hundreds of people in Pakistan in recent months, including opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, assassinated in a gun-and-bomb attack on in the city of Rawalpindi on Dec. 27.