At least 29 persons--five of them police officers on duty--were killed and more than 45 critically injured when an unidentified suicide bomber blew himself up at the conclusion of a public meeting addressed by Pakistan'sinterior minister Mr. Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao at Charsadda in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) on the evening of April28, 2007. The interior minister, who was about to leave the venue of the meeting, escaped with minor injuries.
Mr.Sherpao, a Pashtun, who was previously close to Mrs.Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister, and now is a strong supporter ofGen Pervez Musharraf, figures in the hit list of many jihadi terrorist organisations of Pakistan and is, therefore, highly protected. Anticipating a possible threat to him, strong security measures had been taken at the venue to protect him. The meeting itself passed off without any incident, but as theminister and others were leaving the venue after the meeting, there was less vigilance among the police officers posted on duty. The suicide bomber took advantage of this, approached theminister without being stopped by the Police and blew himself up.
Since September 18 last year, there have been 16 explosions in the NWFP --some involving suicide terrorism and others involving timedexplosions-- none of which has been successfully investigated so far. The suspicion has been that the the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the pro-Taliban tribal groups of North Waziristan and the anti-Shia Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ) have been committing theseacts--each for its own reason.
Earlier, on the morning of April 28, 2007, an improvised explosive device (IED) activated by a timer exploded in the Peshawar airport, but there were no casualties. There was a similar explosion in a parked car in the same airport on December26, 2006.
The timed explosion in the Peshawar airport in the morning and the suicide explosion at the public meeting in the evening came a day after an incident in North Waziristan in which four tribesmen were killed and two others injured in an explosion in a house used as a guest house of a madrasa in village Saidgai close to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. While the villagers alleged that the house was destroyed by a missile fired by a US plane, the Pakistani authorities claimed that the inmates of the house had stored explosive material, which accidentally exploded. The villagers have rejected the claim of the authorities. There has been considerable anger against the Americans and thegovernment of Gen Pervez Musharraf over this incident.
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B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai.
