Deputy Director JPMC Karachi Dr Seemi Jamali, said several of the injured were in critical conditions. She said the injured were still being brought into the Casualties Department of JPMC by the PPP workers and ambulances.
The Casualty Department of JPMC is full to capacity and therefore the injured were being referred to Civil Hospital and Liaquat National Hospital, it was further stated. Bhutto was safe and at her home after leaving the truck that had been transporting her through streets crowded with hundreds of thousands of well-wishers, officials said.
"Ms. Bhutto is safe and she has been taken to her residence," said Azhar Farooqui, a senior police officer in Karachi. Militants linked to al Qaeda, angered by Bhutto's support for the United States war on terrorism, had earlier this week threatened to assassinate her. Dr Ejaz Ahmed, a police surgeon, told Reuters that 56 dead had been brought to three hospitals of the city. A Reuters reporter counted 33 bodies in another hospital.
An interior ministry spokesman said 150 people were wounded. Rescuers scrambled to drag bodies from the twisted wreckage of blazing vehicles as flames lit up the night sky after two apparent explosions in violent Karachi.
"The blasts hit two police vehicles which were escorting the truck carrying Ms. Bhutto. The target was the truck," Farooqui told Reuters. Rehman Malik, an aide to Bhutto who was travelling with her on the truck, said the blasts went off while she was resting inside the vehicle.
President Pervez Musharraf, in a statement issued by the state run news agency, said the attack represented "a conspiracy against democracy". Intelligence reports suggested at least three jihadi groups linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban were plotting suicide attacks, according to a provincial official.
Some 20,000 security personnel had been deployed to provide protection for the returning Bhutto. "She has an agreement with America. We will carry out attacks on Benazir Bhutto as we did on General Pervez Musharraf," Haji Omar, a Taliban commander in the Waziristan tribal region on the Afghan border, told Reuters by satellite telephone as Bhutto headed for Pakistan.
The United States is believed to have quietly encouraged their alliance to keep nuclear-armed Pakistan pro-Western and committed to fighting al Qaeda and supporting NATO's efforts to stabilise Afghanistan.