Karachi, Oct 25 – Two Pakistani policemen, having a smoke on a police station rooftop, casually stubbed the cigarette in a bottle containing highly inflammable chemicals for making explosives – causing a blast.
The explosion on the roof of Risala police station Saturday afternoon was caused by two policemen who were smoking on the roof, officials of the bomb disposal squad (BDS) told The News.
Potassium nitrate, which is a chemical component in explosives and is inflammable, was stored in a container on the rooftop. The chemical is also known as saltpetre.
The team found that there were two bottles of potassium nitrate on the rooftop, each carrying 100 grams of the explosive material.
‘One of the two policemen put a burning cigarette in the bottle carrying saltpetre. This caused a huge explosion, injuring both men,’ an official was quoted as saying.
The bottles had been sent to the Risala police by the BDS for testing purposes, after a large quantity of potassium nitrate had been discovered near the courts.
‘Some 15 to 20 kg of potassium nitrate was recovered last year near City Courts premises. Except for some 200 grams, the rest was disposed of.
‘Instead of sending the samples to the lab, the Risala police dumped these two bottles on the roof of their building,’ the official said.
The official went on to say that his assessment was that ‘the chemical was ignited by cigarette. Most probably, one of the guards put the burning end of the cigarette in the container, and this caused the explosion.’
The explosion caused panic in the area with the people fearing it to be a terror attack.
Pakistan has been hit by a string of terror strikes as the army continued its assault against the Taliban fighters in South Waziristan.
Over 170 people have been killed in the latest wave of militant violence, which started with a suicide bombing at the offices of the UN World Food Programme in Islamabad Oct 5. Five employees of the agency were killed.
The most audacious attack came on Oct 10 when 10 terrorists in military uniform laid siege to the Pakistan Army’s General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. At least 19 people, including nine raiders, died in the 22-hour standoff. One militant was arrested.
On Oct 15, gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed two police academies and the offices of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency in the eastern city of Lahore. A car bomber struck a police station in the northwestern town of Kohat. At least 38 people including 11 insurgents were killed in a single day.
A twin suicide bombing Oct 20 at the International Islamic University here killed seven people.
On Oct 22, Brigadier Moinuddin Ahmed, who was the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan, was gunned down along with another soldier in Islamabad.
A day later, 25 people were killed and 27 injured in a series of blasts across Pakistan. Eighteen people died in a landmine explosion in Mohmand Agency while seven were killed when a suicide bomber struck at an air force base in Attock district. Eight people were injured in a bombing outside a restaurant in Peshawar.