PESHAWAR, Feb 24: Unidentified people blew up a Wapda tower on the main 66kv Shabqadar-Ghalanai transmission line at Saro Killay near here on Saturday night, plunging the entire Mohmand Agency into darkness.

A Peshawar-based spokesman for Wapda told Dawn that miscreants blew up the huge tower by planting powerful explosive beside its base.

Quoting people of the locality, the spokesman said the explosion caused panic in the area as the tower came down with a big bang at about 8:30pm disrupting electricity supply from Shabqadar in the NWFP to Mohmand Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

“Due to non-availability of alternative sources, power supply cannot be restored to the affected area unless a new tower is installed,” said the spokesman.

The chief executive of the Peshawar Electricity Supply Company, Brig Tahir Saeed Malik, visited the site of the incident and took stock of the situation. Pesco, said the spokesman, had again moved the provincial government to ensure safety of Wapda’s assets so that it could ensure unhindered electricity supply to Fata.

The incident was second of its kind occurred in the area during the last one month. Back on Jan 22, a large tower on the same transmission line had been blown up.

Earlier, two towers were blown up at Darra Adamkhel and then in a similar attempt some tribesmen had damaged a tower at Kohat.

In reply to a question, the spokesman said Wapda had suffered a loss of around Rs1.2 million due to the latest incident.