ISLAMABAD, Dec 5: NWFP Chief Minister Mohammad Akram Khan Durrani has accused a man belonging to a federal intelligence agency of planting explosives outside his offices in Peshawar on Tuesday and declared that the accused would be apprehended and interrogated to expose what might be a conspiracy to destabilise his government.
Speaking at a news conference at Frontier House, the chief minister, who was here for attending the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (Fazl) shoora meeting, said an FIR had been registered against the suspect, Tufail, son of Ismail, who had been nabbed red-handed while planting the explosive, and an official of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), who had got him released and the explosive material removed from a police station in Peshawar.
The chief minister said the accused had been nabbed by police officials guarding his office and handed over to the police station with the explosive material which he had planted.
IB Joint Director-General Zafarullah Khan went to the police station, got the accused released and the bomb removed, he said.
According to bomb disposal experts, the explosive device planted by the IB personnel, whose father was a stenographer in the same agency, was ready to explode, but those who had removed it from the police station might change it, he alleged.
The local IB offices were raided by the Peshawar police but they were not given access to the accused nor the explosive material was returned, the chief minister said.
He said it was an offence against a province, apparently directed by someone in centre in order to destabilise his government ahead of the general elections.
He announced a reward of Rs50, 000 for each of the four police personnel who were on duty at his office.
In reply to a question, Mr Durrani said he expected Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to contact him after the incident since the IB was working directly under the premier.
He linked the recent suicide bombing in Bannu to the conspiracy, saying that the man involved in the blast had gone from Peshawar.
The chief minister said it would become clear from interrogation of the accused whether the incident had any links with other explosions that had occurred in the province over the past four years.
In reply to a question, Mr Durrani said the police inspector who had been given the custody of the accused and who had handed him over to the IB official would be interrogated and punished if found guilty.
Regarding the arbitration tribunal’s decision about the NWFP’s share in profit from hydroelectric power generation, he said he had asked the prime minister to intervene and ensure that the Rs22 billion payable within three months were paid in time and to arrange payment of Rs110 billion in four years.
He said the federal government was the guarantor in the deal and he had warned the premier that he would protest outside the Prime Minister’s House with his cabinet members and parliamentarians from the province if it was violated.
The chief minister rejected the federal information minister’s claim that the NWFP government would spend Rs8 billion on enforcement of the Hasba Act, saying that it would not cost more than Rs10 million and a very small number of additional staff would be employed.
Our Peshawar Correspondent adds: East Cantonment police have registered a case against IB Naib-Qasid Mohammad Tufail and another one against an IB official for illegally taking away the accused held on charges of planting explosives near the Chief Minister’s Secretariat on Tuesday morning.
"Conspiracies are being hatched in Islamabad against the NWFP government, which are aimed at creating unrest in the province," said provincial Information Minister Asif Iqbal Daudzai, according to a handout.
An official of the bureau refuted the allegations and said the entire issue was based on a misunderstanding. He said the explosives seized had been collected from the site of an explosion which had occurred on Monday at the Hayatabad police checkpoint.
The official claimed that the bureau’s office was in the vicinity of the CM’s House and the naib-qasid had thrown some items at a garbage dump adjacent to the CM’s Secretariat. “Such a tiny explosive stick can't cause any damage and it did not have the pieces used for detonation,” he added.
