News
Sunday, June 16, 2013
BLA blows up Quaid’s final abode; hoists its own flag
* Security personnel killed in exchange of fire as armed men explode Ziarat Residency with bombsQUETTA: Separatist militants blew up a historic building linked to Pakistan’s founding father in the country’s violence-plagued southwest after shooting dead a guard in a predawn attack on Saturday, officials said.
According to details, four armed men entered the hall of Quaid-e-Azam Residency and attacked it with a remote-controlled and petrol bombs.
The attackers, armed with automatic weapons entered the 19th century wooden Ziarat Residency after midnight and planted several bombs, senior administration official Nadeem Tahir told AFP.
Sources said that soon after the incident, an exchange of fire took place between two security personnel and armed men. As a result, a security personnel, identified as Mohammad Tahir, was killed in the exchange of firing. The armed men escaped from the area after the attack.
Sources said that the residency caught fire after the attack, and the items used by Quaid-e-Azam, as well as his portraits, reduced to ashes. A team of fire-fighters was dispatched from Quetta following the incident, which put out the fire after hectic efforts for many hours. Sources also said that a Bomb Disposal Squad (BDS) unit defused six more bombs from the area.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the driving force behind the creation of Pakistan, spent his last days in the building, which was declared a national monument following his death, one year after the country’s independence in 1947.
A separatist-group later claimed responsibility for the attack. “We blew up the Ziarat Residency,” Meerak Baloch, a spokesman for the Balochistan Liberation Army, told AFP in a phone call from an undisclosed location. “We don’t recognise any Pakistani monument.”
Meanwhile, hundreds of people, including some party leaders and students, staged a protest rally in the town, demanding “exemplary punishment of culprits involved in the attack”, witnesses said.
Similarly, the Balochistan chief secretary condemned the incident, saying that national assets were generally not damaged in conflicts. He said the Ziarat Residency was a national asset and the attack was condemnable.
The government had ordered immediate steps to rebuild the Ziarat Residency in its original form, he said.
Talking to the media, IG Mushtaq Sukhera said they did not have any information regarding the possibility of the attack in Ziarat because the area was, until now, peaceful. staff report/agencies
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk