News
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Mystery surrounds number of Naval base attackersKARACHI: Mystery surrounded the number of attackers who had besieged the navy’s airbase in Karachi as Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Noman Bashir and police gave different figures.
A police official claimed that there were twice as many attackers as the number claimed by the government and navy. An FIR of the attack at PNS Mehran, where police was not allowed to enter during the gunbattle against terrorists, was lodged with the Shahrah-e-Faisal Police Station on Tuesday. The FIR number 447/11 was registered under sections 302, 324, 427, 353, 121/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code, 3/4 of the Explosives Act and 7 Anti-Terrorism Act on the complaint of Lieutenant Irfan against 12 unidentified terrorists.
Eight of the terrorists nominated in the FIR are invisible in the whole episode, as reportedly, investigators had, after great difficulty, found the body of the forth terrorist who had blown himself up. In his statement, Lt Irfan said that terrorists were carrying rocket launchers, Kalashnikovs and other deadly weapons. He pointed out that the terrorists, who carried such a huge cache of weapons, had entered the PNS Mehran by climbing the back wall into the base with the help of ladders and cutters. The FIR states that 10 security personnel were martyred while four terrorists were killed during the attack. Security personnel recovered two live suicide jackets, 10 hand grenades, 1 rocket launcher and 4 Kalashnikovs that belonged to the attackers, it added. In Monday’s news conference, Interior Minister Rehman Malik had said that there were some four to six terrorists and two of them managed to flee from the airbase. But navy officials increased the number of terrorists a day after Malik’s media briefing. A navy spokesman said he was looking into the discrepancy. atif raza
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk