Power pylon destroyed in bomb attack: ‘Missile’ fire ruptures water pipeline again
By Amanullah Kasi
QUETTA, Jan 28: Saboteurs destroyed the main power transmission line near the town of Rakhni in a bomb attack and fired a missile at yet another section of a water pipeline of Pirkoh gas plant, officials said on Saturday.
The bomb attack disrupted electricity supply to thousands of people in Barkhan and Kohlu districts.
Officials in Barkhan said that a bomb planted by saboteurs at the base of a 132kv transmission line at Kata Chowki, five kilometres from Rakhni, exploded in the early hours of Saturday. They said that power supply would be restored as soon as the pylon was repaired.
According to the district coordination officer in Dera Bugti, Abdul Samad Lasi, saboteurs fired two missiles and five rockets at a water pipeline near Patarnal on Saturday morning and damaged a big portion of the pipeline, which supplies water to Pirkoh gas plant.
A spokesman for the Jamhoori Watan Party, however, denied the government’s claim that a missile attack had been launched on the water pipeline. He said the pipeline was a “money-minting racket for the district coordination officer and Frontier Corps officials”.
Mr Lasi said that almost half-a-kilometre long portion of the water pipeline had been damaged in four separate attacks. The water pipeline is 30 kilometres long from Patarnal to the Pirkoh gas plant.
Repair work on the pipeline which was begun on Friday has been halted following Saturday’s attack.
Mr Lasi said there were no reports of artillery exchanges between security forces and outlaws.
But JWP spokesman Agha Shahid Hasan Bugti said that security forces shelled areas in Dera Bugti town and adjoining areas. The firing, which started at 4.30pm and continued for 70 minutes, did not cause any casualties.
BOMB DEFUSED: Police defused a bomb planted near the main railway track in the Mengalabad suburb of Quetta. According to sources, the Balochistan Express train from Karachi was to pass from this place within half-an-hour of attack.
Law enforcement agencies also deactivated two rockets that were positioned in the direction of Turbat airport. Sources in Sui said two landmines were also defused adjacent to Pirkoh gas plant.
Police said that a rocket crashed near the residence of former Qesco chief Brig (retd) Agha Gul and another landed in the cantonment area. The rocket attack did not cause any damage apart from smashing the windowpanes of houses in the area.
STRINGENT MEASURES: Tribal chieftain Sardar Abdur Rehman Khetran urged the government to take stringent measures against those who had destroyed the electricity pylon in the town of Rakhni in Barkhan district.
Speaking at a press conference, Sardar Khetran said the government should dismantle the fugitive camps set up by Nawab Akbar Bugti and Nawabzada Balaach Marri in Dera Bugti and Kohlu, respectively.
