1987 Karachi car bombing

On 14 July 1987, two vehicles loaded with RDX explosives were driven into the Bohri Bazaar area of Karachi, Pakistan, and parked. The first car bomb detonated at approximately 6:30 pm outside a hairdresser's shop on Syedna Burhanuddin Street, near a bus stop, destroying eight shops and a hotel. Roughly 30 minutes later, a second car bomb exploded on Raja Ghazanfar Ali Road, about 100 yards from the site of the first blast. This second explosion detonated outside a record shop, setting multiple buildings ablaze and destroying more than a dozen vehicles. Fires ignited by the second bombing burned for four hours before being brought under control.

Together, the two bombings killed 72 people and injured 250 others, making it one of the deadliest single incidents of urban violence in Karachi during this period.

In the aftermath, the Pakistani government publicly attributed the bombings to the Afghan intelligence agency, known as KhAD. Pakistani opposition figures, including the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, instead placed blame on the policies of then-President Ziaul-Haq. No individual has been named as charged or convicted in connection with the attack according to available source material.

One documented consequence of the bombing was humanitarian: the devastation at Bohri Bazaar prompted Ramzan Chhipa to found the Chhipa Welfare Association, an organization that has since operated in Pakistan.

This dossier is based on a Wikipedia summary of the event. Contemporaneous news coverage from The Washington Post and The New York Times, published the day after the bombings, is listed among the case's references but its specific text was not available for direct citation of facts in this summary.