BDU expert escapes unhurt as IED goes off

Expert gets Rs5,000 extra for putting
his life in danger; 6,000 IEDs defused in last 7 years

PESHAWAR: A brilliant officer of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bomb Disposal Unit (BDU) on Tuesday escaped unhurt when a bomb he was defusing went off.

The job of bomb disposal men is probably the toughest in the world but they are never paid or given incentives as per the risk that is involved with their duty. The BDU has defused over 6,000 bomb since 2009 saving thousands of lives.

The BDU experts rushed to the Daudzai area on Tuesday after an earlier explosion that killed a policeman, Nazir.

As a BDU expert was searching for explosives near a makeshift police post, set up for the security of the anti-polio vaccinator, another IED was found.“As I was defusing it by placing a stick close to it, someone from within the crowd pressed the button to trigger the explosives,” the expert of the BDU Zahid said on Tuesday. He was speaking hardly a few minutes after he survived the huge blast. The bomb went off barely a few feet from him.

The policemen ran towards Zahid when he fell down on the ground after the explosion. “Is he fine? Can he speak?” the officers were asking each other when they ran towards Zahid, who has defused a number of explosive devices in recent months in Peshawar and nearby towns.

The protection gear, which the BDU experts normally don’t use due to its weight, proved the main factor in protecting Zahid from getting killed or critically wounded. The kit is said to be around 75 kilograms and it is hard for someone to move while wearing it.

Many were surprised as to how the remote control device worked when there were jammers all over. “I can’t say anything about the jammers,” said Zahid when he was asked by a journalist as to how the remote control device worked in presence of jammers.

The assistant inspector general (AIG) of the BDU explained that the first blast was triggered through remote control, but the second was initiated by a hidden mechanical switch.

“The secondary device is mostly planted with anti-lift switch to booby trap the BDU person who will be happier to detect and defuse it. Our SOP worked and our experienced man who was wearing latest protective gear disrupted it with the rigging device. The hidden switch worked and the IED went off,” Shafqat Malik told The News.

He added that it is a mechanical switch and it can’t be stopped with any jamming device. “It was not triggered through remote control otherwise it could have been triggered during the search,” he pointed out.

The top experts of the BDU, Inspector Hukam Khan and Inspector Abdul Haq, were among the most competent bomb disposal experts who lost their lives while defusing explosives in recent years.

Hukam Khan was killed while defusing explosives in Matani near Peshawar. Abdul Haq was killed along with three of his men when their car was attacked with an IED in Badaber after being called to defuse an IED in 2012.

As many as 15 BDU experts have lost their lives with their boots on during the last almost seven years. Some of the experts, including the famous Inayatullah alias Tiger, lost one or the other parts of their body while defusing bombs. They are still doing this risky job.

Inayatullah sustained critical injuries when a bomb went off in Kulachi in Dera Ismail Khan while he was defusing it. “I will continue serving my country and people as long as I am alive,” Tiger told a function in Peshawar in August.

“Try our men and everyone will do his best. It is team work and all my men are ready to perform their best for the people and the country,” said Shafqat Malik.

The KP BDU has defused over 6,000 IEDs since 2009. These could have killed thousands of people and caused critical injuries to innumerable others.

The number of defused explosives is probably one of the highest in any country in the last seven years.For doing the most dangerous job in the world, an expert of the KP Police gets Rs25,000 to 40,000 per month.

 “A BDU man is given only Rs5,000 additional allowance compared to other policemen despite the fact that they are doing the toughest job on earth,” said an official.

The KP BDU has been given bomb detecting and defusing robots that can detect and defuse explosives from a safe distance. However, these robots have yet to be used. An official said the robots can move only in plain areas.

The robots, however, were not used even in areas where roads have been built in the plains.Another major problem the BDU experts normally face is that a large number of people gather at a site when they are defusing a bomb. The crowd not only divert the attention of the BDU experts but also put their lives in danger.