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| 11 killed, 45 injured in Pindi suicide attack |
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Tuesday, February 05, 2008
By Shakeel Anjum
RAWALPINDI: A suicide bomber on Monday rammed his motorcycle into an Army Medical Corps (AMC) coaster in RA Bazaar, killing at least 11 persons, including six uniformed and civil personnel of AMC, and critically injuring over 45 others, a security agency source said.
Three passers-by, including a bike-rider and two others in two nearby vehicles, close to the targeted coaster at the time of blast, were also killed. The injured also include passers-by. Twenty-seven of the wounded were shifted to the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) and 18 to the Military Hospital (MH), the sources said.
Some persons, who witnessed the blast, claimed that the suicide bomber blew himself up in-between three vehicles. Dr Colonel Shabbir, Subedar Zahoor Ahmad, Subedar Muhammad Rafiq and Asif Iqbal (an employee of MES) were among the dead while seven doctors including Dr Colonel Hamed, Dr Colonel Khizar, Dr Major Qamar, Dr Major Samia, Dr Captain Amin, Dr Captain Kashif and Noor Hussain were critically wounded.
Body pieces and head of the suicide bomber have been sent to the District Headquarters Hospital. Soon after the incident, Army and police high-ups as well as the top officers of different intelligence agencies reached the scene, inspected the situation, and started collecting evidence from the blast site.
Bodies were shifted to the CMH, while seven injured were stated to be in critical condition. The blast occurred in front of the main gate of the National Logistics Cell (NLC) near Gate-3, about 400 yards away from the RA Bazaar Police Station, in the highly sensitive zone of the Cantonment area at about 7.22am.
Troops took control of the area and cordoned off the locality. Even media persons were not allowed access to the site that was later fenced, and the damaged vehicles were removed from the scene. Security of the twin-cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad was beefed up as paramilitary forces were deployed at important installations and foreign missions.
“It was definitely a suicide attack targeting personnel belonging to army organisations,” a security officer said, adding that it was a link in the chain of suicide attacks targeting Army and government personnel and installations.
The officer, quoting eyewitnesses, said that the suicide bomber rammed his motorcycle into the coaster from the front and blew up with a thunderous bang. “The motorbike used to hit the coaster was loaded with high powered explosive material,” he said.
The people witnessed pieces of the vehicle flying in the air with shrieks and cries of the injured people. There was fire and thick, black smoke all around the scene of the blast. The blast was so severe that it blew up the roof of the coaster and damaged two other vehicles, witnesses said. “There was a big fireball. Some pellets from the bomb hit the wall of my shop and I dived down, because I was injured in the arm in another blast that had taken place almost at the same spot last year,” a shopkeeper witness said.
The bang was heard several kilometres away from the site while windowpanes of dozens of adjacent buildings were broken and a number of vehicles passing on the busy road were damaged.
“It was a horrible scene. I saw mutilated bodies and the pieces scattered all around. Those critically wounded were either lying unconscious or writhing in pain with ear-piercing cries. This will haunt me forever as a nightmare,” Mirza Yaqub, an eyewitness said.
Meanwhile, Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI) have started joint investigation after collecting pieces of evidence from the scene to find a track to the terrorist’s network while teams of different investigation agencies including the Special Investigation Group (SIG) of FIA, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and police would probe the matter separately, the sources said.
The intelligence agencies have collected and sent for DNA test pieces of limbs and head of the suicide bomber, the sources said. People in large numbers gathered at the scene to know the details.
This was the second suicide attack on vehicles of defence or defence-related personnel in 70 days. A suicide bomber had hit a staff bus of Hamza Camp on Nov 24, 2007, claiming 30 lives. Two suicide attacks almost identical to the one that occurred Monday hit Rawalpindi on September 4, 2007, one at Qasim Market and the other almost at the same place where Mondayís blast took place. In the Sept 4 blasts around 30 persons were killed.
Meanwhile, an ISPR press release Monday said, “six security personnel embraced ‘Shahadat’ and 38 others were injured including security forces personnel and civilians in a suicide attack in RA Bazaar. Reportedly a suicide bomber blew himself up near a Security Force vehicle at about 7-30am”.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
