PESHAWAR: Suspected Taliban militants blew up a 500 KV Sheikh Mohammadi Peshawar-Tarbela Transmission line at Mirza Village in Ormar (upper) area plunging major parts of Peshawar in darkness at 5.12am on Thursday.
A police official said that four powerful explosives packed in plastic bottles had been planted beneath all the (four) pillars of the tower where three of them were blasted and one was later on defused by the bomb disposal squad.
The pylon destruction had also caused disruption of power supply to 132 KV Peshawar University, Peshawar Industrial, Rehman Baba and Matni Grid Stations and all 11 KV feeders areas fed through these grid stations.
The local police said they had heard three bomb blasts simultaneously but the area was very risky and they couldn’t move in the darkness.
‘We avoided going to the area soon after the blasts as a few days ago an encounter with criminals had taken place in the same area,’ the police official said.
An official of the bomb disposal squad told Dawn that the explosives had been tied up to he pillars by digging out the concrete.
He said it was similar to the cases which had happened on August 8 and November 6 where a 500-KV tower had been blown up twice at Shaikh Mohammadi in Badbher, but the accused had not been identified so far.
A Peshawar Electric Supply Company spokesman said that technical staff of the Water and Power Development Authority had reached the blasts site and have started the rehabilitation work.
The rehabilitation work and supply of electricity on permanent basis, he said would take some time and till that time the affected areas would be supplied electricity through alternative sources.
He said load management would be carried out in limits of these grid stations.
The spokesman said that Pesco had restored the power supply to affected areas through alternative source but the alternative source had become overloaded.
He said it was Pesco’s compulsion to observe load management for small intervals in the affected areas, requesting the consumers to extend cooperation in power utility.
The power consumers from various localities complained that the supply of electricity remained suspended to their areas till evening.
They said power supply was restored for about one hour and was suspended again from two to three hours the same night.
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