Though no major act of terrorism occurred in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after the announcement of truce by outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), there was no stop to sporadic attacks on the law enforcement agencies and incidents of targeted attacks on well-off people.
Official sources revealed that a total of 10 explosions, including one suicide attack, took place in March only in Peshawar. About 14 people were killed and 43 others wounded in the terrorist acts, but TTP did not claim responsibility for these incidents while it continued to engage in negotiations with the government.
Compared to the previous few years these incidents look nominal, still it is a matter of concern for the investigators as to who is involved in the terrorist acts when TTP has already announced a ceasefire and Lashkar-i-Islam (LI) of Khyber Agency has been engaged in operation.
The suicide attack was made on a police party on March 15 at Batatal area of Sarband in the suburbs of Peshawar where 12 people were killed and over 30 injured. However, most of the other bomb blasts were intended for extortion purpose in different localities. Some of the houses like that of former provincial minister and industrialist Haji Mohammad Javaid were attacked twice within a short span of time, but the attackers are yet to be traced and arrested.
According to police sources, the attackers have been using the name of the banned organisation and demanding millions of rupees as donation, and those refusing to accept such demands have to face the wrath of terrorists in the shape of bomb blasts at their houses.
Most of those who came under attack are running some kind of business, but they avoid giving applications to police for registration of cases or nominating anyone in FIRs in the relevant police stations. For the police, the extortion cases are now a routine and crime of a normal nature because of the repeated huge blasts in the past. The investigators rarely bother to take small blasts seriously and treat them as a routine matter, and thus prefer to close the files by submitting the traditional investigation reports.
These sabotage acts have scared the business community and the traders are repeatedly appealing for taking appropriate steps for protection of people. They are of the opinion that police have given a free hand to criminals and failed to arrest the extortionists.
“We do not accept the police version that extortionist groups have been busted, as none of them are produced before the anti-terrorism court,” said Haji Sharafat Ali Mubarak, president of Anjuman-i-Tajiran Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while talking to this reporter.
The business community, he said, was very much worried as the government was not serious about provision of protection to the working class. He said that the government employees were also facing serious problems due to the threats sent to them for payment of extortion money.
“The government has passed security ordinance and directed the traders to arrange private security for their personal protection in addition to installation of closed-circuit television cameras at the working places and avoid allowing customers unless they were fully searched, but we are not ready to accept such laws,” he said.
Mr Mubarak said that the traders were regularly paying taxes to the government and it was duty of the rulers to ensure security to the people otherwise masses would stop paying taxes.
In the face of such laws, he said, no one could run business rather they would defy the law in a state of compulsion. Giving an example, he said that there was only one four-star hotel in Peshawar and the law was meant for five- or four-star hotels, but police were applying it to the ordinary hotels to mint money.
However, he appreciated the checking of tenants in rented buildings and said that traders were ready to extend full cooperation in implementation of the law in residential colonies so that suspected people could be checked. He asked the government to stop harassing the business community in the name of security law and fulfil its prime responsibility of ensuring protection to the people at all costs.
Former information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said that the government had badly failed to protect lives of people and it was trying different tactics for saving its own skin, but people of the province knew about everything. He said that innocent people were killed, kidnapped and forced to pay huge extortions and as result they were leaving the province for safer places.
The government, he said, should provide protection to the people otherwise a sense of deprivation and insecurity would spread among them.
However, police spokesman Jalaluddin rejected the comments about the police’s failure and said that several groups of attackers and extortionists had been arrested so far and produced before the relevant courts for awarding them punishment according to the law. The gangs, he said, were busted in the areas of Hayatabad, Yakatoot, Peshtakhara, Faqirabad and Bana Mani, but it was a human society and nobody could totally purge it from criminals. The gangsters, he said, used to cash the name of proscribed organisations, but in fact they had no association with them. In most of the cases, he said, Afghan nationals had been found involved in such cases while in others the relatives had been arrested plotting to mint money. The accused persons are habitual criminals who have no sympathy even for relatives and their only purpose was to accumulate wealth.
About the bomb blasts and grenade attacks on houses, he said that the society was full of such things due to the prevailing disturbed situation. He said that crackers were easily available in the markets for different celebrations, but terrorists were using them for their own motives.
When contacted, Peshawar SSP (investigation) Masood Khalil said that the explosive devices were China-made and the people had been using them in case of enmities. He said that checking of imported items was the duty of the relevant departments. He said that police were trying their best to stop criminal acts like explosion, but it was impossible to deploy police at every place.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Peshawar witnesses 10 blasts during ceasefire
Though no major act of terrorism occurred in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after the announcement of truce by outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), there was no stop to sporadic attacks on the law enforcement agencies and incidents of targeted attacks on well-off people.
Official sources revealed that a total of 10 explosions, including one suicide attack, took place in March only in Peshawar. About 14 people were killed and 43 others wounded in the terrorist acts, but TTP did not claim responsibility for these incidents while it continued to engage in negotiations with the government.
Compared to the previous few years these incidents look nominal, still it is a matter of concern for the investigators as to who is involved in the terrorist acts when TTP has already announced a ceasefire and Lashkar-i-Islam (LI) of Khyber Agency has been engaged in operation.
The suicide attack was made on a police party on March 15 at Batatal area of Sarband in the suburbs of Peshawar where 12 people were killed and over 30 injured. However, most of the other bomb blasts were intended for extortion purpose in different localities. Some of the houses like that of former provincial minister and industrialist Haji Mohammad Javaid were attacked twice within a short span of time, but the attackers are yet to be traced and arrested.
According to police sources, the attackers have been using the name of the banned organisation and demanding millions of rupees as donation, and those refusing to accept such demands have to face the wrath of terrorists in the shape of bomb blasts at their houses.
Most of those who came under attack are running some kind of business, but they avoid giving applications to police for registration of cases or nominating anyone in FIRs in the relevant police stations. For the police, the extortion cases are now a routine and crime of a normal nature because of the repeated huge blasts in the past. The investigators rarely bother to take small blasts seriously and treat them as a routine matter, and thus prefer to close the files by submitting the traditional investigation reports.
These sabotage acts have scared the business community and the traders are repeatedly appealing for taking appropriate steps for protection of people. They are of the opinion that police have given a free hand to criminals and failed to arrest the extortionists.
“We do not accept the police version that extortionist groups have been busted, as none of them are produced before the anti-terrorism court,” said Haji Sharafat Ali Mubarak, president of Anjuman-i-Tajiran Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while talking to this reporter.
The business community, he said, was very much worried as the government was not serious about provision of protection to the working class. He said that the government employees were also facing serious problems due to the threats sent to them for payment of extortion money.
“The government has passed security ordinance and directed the traders to arrange private security for their personal protection in addition to installation of closed-circuit television cameras at the working places and avoid allowing customers unless they were fully searched, but we are not ready to accept such laws,” he said.
Mr Mubarak said that the traders were regularly paying taxes to the government and it was duty of the rulers to ensure security to the people otherwise masses would stop paying taxes.
In the face of such laws, he said, no one could run business rather they would defy the law in a state of compulsion. Giving an example, he said that there was only one four-star hotel in Peshawar and the law was meant for five- or four-star hotels, but police were applying it to the ordinary hotels to mint money.
However, he appreciated the checking of tenants in rented buildings and said that traders were ready to extend full cooperation in implementation of the law in residential colonies so that suspected people could be checked. He asked the government to stop harassing the business community in the name of security law and fulfil its prime responsibility of ensuring protection to the people at all costs.
Former information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said that the government had badly failed to protect lives of people and it was trying different tactics for saving its own skin, but people of the province knew about everything. He said that innocent people were killed, kidnapped and forced to pay huge extortions and as result they were leaving the province for safer places.
The government, he said, should provide protection to the people otherwise a sense of deprivation and insecurity would spread among them.
However, police spokesman Jalaluddin rejected the comments about the police’s failure and said that several groups of attackers and extortionists had been arrested so far and produced before the relevant courts for awarding them punishment according to the law. The gangs, he said, were busted in the areas of Hayatabad, Yakatoot, Peshtakhara, Faqirabad and Bana Mani, but it was a human society and nobody could totally purge it from criminals. The gangsters, he said, used to cash the name of proscribed organisations, but in fact they had no association with them. In most of the cases, he said, Afghan nationals had been found involved in such cases while in others the relatives had been arrested plotting to mint money. The accused persons are habitual criminals who have no sympathy even for relatives and their only purpose was to accumulate wealth.
About the bomb blasts and grenade attacks on houses, he said that the society was full of such things due to the prevailing disturbed situation. He said that crackers were easily available in the markets for different celebrations, but terrorists were using them for their own motives.
When contacted, Peshawar SSP (investigation) Masood Khalil said that the explosive devices were China-made and the people had been using them in case of enmities. He said that checking of imported items was the duty of the relevant departments. He said that police were trying their best to stop criminal acts like explosion, but it was impossible to deploy police at every place.
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