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| November 8, 2001 | Thursday | Shaba’an 21, 1422 |
Mine blasts maim two children
KOHAT, Nov 7: Two schoolchildren were maimed and six others seriously injured in two separate incidents when anti-personnel mines exploded in a village near the Pakistan-Afghan border town of Parachinar in the Kurram Agency, 260km west from here, despite a strict check on the activities of the terrorists by half a dozen law enforcing and intelligence agencies following the US air strikes against Afghanistan.
In the first incident, a mine exploded on a katcha route used by the schoolchildren in the Piwar Alizai area, 16km in the west of Parachinar towards Afghanistan, at 7.30 am on Monday in which Irhshad Ali, son of Mahboob Ali, lost his left foot and Mubeen Ali, son of Faqir Hussain and his minor sister Najma were seriously injured by metal splinters.
In the afternoon, when the assistant political agent came to see the site of the incident, another mine went off causing fatal leg injuries to Khurshid Ali, son of Mohabat Ali, who was watching the scene from the nearby fields whereas Zamin Hussain, son of Qadam Hussain, Bilal Hussain, son of Naseeb Ali, Hukman Ali, son of Salman Ali and Javed Hussain, son of Ahmed Ali, were badly hurt.
The injured were rushed to the agency headquarters hospital where the lower part of the leg of Khurshid Ali was removed by the doctors. Four of the injured, including two who lost their legs, were schoolchildren.
The whole of strategic Kurram Agency had been declared “highly sensitive area” by the government following US air strikes against Afghanistan and expected terrorist attacks by the anti-Taliban and anti-Pakistan pro-Northern Alliance agents.
According to recent reports, the agents of Northern Alliance had strengthened their network in the area with the help of “friendly tribesmen” and were operating from there inside Pakistan and Afghanistan to muster support for themselves.
They had also circulated millions of fake currency notes in the Kurram Agency through their agents all over Pakistan with the help and connivance of criminals who were an easy prey and fall in the trap for few hundred rupees, the reports said.
It may be recalled that a few weeks back, five people, including two havaldars, were killed when explosives went off in their hands in the Kurram Agency whereas the government declared them as terrorists who were getting training for carrying out their nefarious designs in different parts of Pakistan.
The GHQ, after getting wind of the terrorists plan to use Kurram Agency as their headquarters, established a fully-fledged office of the inter services intelligence in Parachinar which was earlier being controlled from Kohat with a maximum of two to three people.
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