CTD registers terrorism case of car bombing in DHA

A day after a late night car explosion in Defence Housing Authority left authorities puzzled regarding its motive and target, the Sindh Counter-Terrorism Department has registered a case against unidentified persons.

The FIR was registered on Tuesday on behalf of Darakshan SHO Arshad Janjua under Section 7 of the Anti-terrorism Act read with Section 3/4/5 of the Explosives Act and Section 427/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code.

Earlier, the investigators were puzzled about the nature of the explosion and its target. However, following a day of investigations, the CTD declared the incident terrorism and registered a case.

“Two packets of explosive material which did not detonate, one weighing one kilogramme and the other weighing six kilogrammes, were recovered from the blast site,” the FIR stated. “Apart from the explosives, six cylinders were also recovered.”

According to the FIR, the unidentified terrorists had planned to carry out a major terror activity in the city but a homemade vehicle-borne improvised explosive device, which was attached to six gas cylinders, caused the explosion in the car.

The powerful explosion occurred on the night between Sunday and Monday in a car parked at an empty plot in Khayaban-e-Mujahid within the remits of Darakshan police station. Fortunately, no loss of life occurred. The car had been stolen from Jamshed Quarters on Sunday evening and within a ten-hour span, an explosion had occurred in it, destroying it completely. However, luckily, the bomb failed to detonate completely. “The terrorists had a high-value target but apparently the bomb exploded mistakenly before they could use the vehicle-borne improvised explosive device to attack the target,” a senior police officer privy to the matter told The News.

No progress

This is the third major terrorism incident in the city in the last three weeks. On November 16, two vendors were killed and 10 others were wounded in a bombing under the Quaidabad flyover. Fortunately, only one of the two bombs planted there exploded, so casualties didn’t rise.

A few days later on November 23, three attackers belonging to a separatist group – the Baloch Liberation Army – attempted to storm the Chinese consulate in Clifton, killing two policemen and two civilians – a father and a son who had arrived from Quetta for a visa. The security forces had managed to kill all three attackers before they could enter the consulate.

Interestingly, all three cases were registered at the CTD where its senior counter-terrorism experts were trying to investigate but haven’t made much of headway as yet.

The senior investigators say that apparently the terrorists managed to conduct their activities in all three incidents but remained unsuccessful in achieving their goals. “In the Quaidabad bombing, one bomb exploded and the second didn’t, while in the Clifton incident, the terrorists managed to attack the Chinese consulate but they could not storm it,” the source explained. Similarly, the car exploded in DHA before they could use it to achieve a high-value target, he said. “We were only able to get some kinds of details and progress [in the consulate attack] because the BLA itself helped the investigators in tracing the group by claiming responsibility and disclosing the videos and pictures as well as identities of the attackers.”

Another senior investigator who declined to be named said it wasn’t as simple as it looked. “It seems all three cases of terrorism are linked to each other directly or indirectly,” he said.