September 20, 2006	Wednesday	Sha'aban 26, 1427

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PESHAWAR, Sept 19: City police had failed to take measures to avert the Monday’s bomb blast in the Cantonment area despite a ‘terror alert’, official sources said on Tuesday.

The special branch in a report sent to Provincial Police Officer Riffat Pasha, NWFP home department, Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani and Capital City Police Officer Habibur Rehman on Sept 6 had stated that terrorists might place a bomb at a hotel, government offices or a public place in the coming days, they said.

But the police did not bother to pay heed to the warning and failed to take any extraordinary measure to prevent the Monday’s blast.

The CCPO was contacted several times at his office phone for comments, but he was busy in meetings.

The West Cantonment police station had registered a case under section 3/4 of the Explosive Substance Act.

CCPO Habibur Rehman has formed two teams headed by SSP operations Iftikhar Khan and SSP investigation Dar Ali Khattak to investigate the blast case. No arrest had been made yet.

The bomb disposal squad had also not finalised its report, police officials said.

Police also could not get the chassis number or registration number of the vehicle under which the bomb was planted, they said and added that the vehicle was completely damaged making it hard to trace the owner of the blown up car.

According to the sources, the special branch had warned of another terrorist act during Ramazan, and the police have also started preparing a list of prominent mosques in the city for extra-deployment of force.

The car parking blast is the second terrorism act in the city after April 15, 2004, when alleged Afghan miscreants launched a rocket attack on the previous Crimes Investigation Department building at the University Road, in which one police official was killed and another wounded.

On March 28, this year a bomb went off in the Khyber Bazaar killing a police constable and injuring 16 other people. But the target of the blast, according to police officials, was senior lawyer and Awami National Party leader Abdul Latif Afridi and was a result of family feud.

In a related development, the British Council in Peshawar and clerics of the city churches on Tuesday contacted the police and sought deployment of extra force following the Monday’s blast, police officials said.