Conflicting claims over probe report: Peshawar explosive case
By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Dec 15: Conflicting claims were made on Friday about the report of an inquiry into an alleged plot to plant explosives near the NWFP Chief Minister’s Secretariat.
Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani claimed on Friday that the four-member inquiry team held the Intelligence Bureau “responsible for the episode”, thereby upholding the charges he (Mr Durrani) had levelled at IB.
However, a federal government official rejected Mr Durrani’s claim, calling it “false and misleading”. He said that the inquiry report gave a lie to the provincial government’s claim of a so-called conspiracy to blow up the CM Secretariat.
The incident occurred on Dec 5 when the police guarding the CM Secretariat caught a low-ranked employee of the IB, the regional offices of which are located across the road, when he was allegedly planting explosives near a refuse bin.
The case triggered a row between the provincial government and the IB, leading to mudslinging and conspiracy theories. The IB naib qasid, Mohammad Tufail, was booked under the Anti-Terrorist Act and his regional boss, Zafarullah Khan, was charged with forcibly taking him away from a police station and interfering with official duty.
To defuse the row, federal and provincial governments agreed to form the four-member committee comprising senior IB official Sharif Virk, FIA director-general Tariq Khosa, Hazara DIGP Zulfikar Cheema and Frontier Reserve Police commandant Malik Mohammad Saad.
The committee completed its work and submitted its report on Thursday. Mr Tufail has since been remanded in judicial custody after he denied any conspiracy, and Mr Zafarullah is on a transit bail awaiting confirmation.
The chief minister claimed that the inquiry report had found the IB guilty of the charge of planting the explosives and forcibly taking away the naib qasid from police custody.
He further claimed that the report had endorsed the provincial government’s stance that the IB had acted in an unlawful manner by freeing the main accused in the case from police custody and snatching the dynamite.
He, however, denied that the provincial government wanted to use the issue to gain political mileage or create tension with the federal government.
But the federal government official, who requested not to be named due to sensitivity of the matter, debunked the chief minister’s claim.
He said the committee had found the main accused a mental simpleton incapable of hatching any conspiracy, thus declaring him innocent of the main charge.
“The fact that the committee has recommended dropping the 7 ATA charge against Tufail proves his innocence and belies the provincial government’s claim,” the official who has seen the report told Dawn.
He claimed that the committee had also recommended dropping charges under 224 and 353 against Mr Zafarullah for forcibly taking away the naib qasid from police custody.
The official said the committee had held police responsible for badly handling the case, “blowing it out of proportion and badly investigating” it. “Had there been an inquiry, the cases would not have been registered at all,” the official quoted the report as noting.
He also refuted the chief minister’s claim that the IB had refused to surrender the accused to police, saying the chief secretary and the provincial police chief had assured that he would be handed over to the Joint Interrogation Team (JIT) for questioning.
“The JIT was never allowed. On the contrary, the naib qasid was subjected to torture and was taken to hospital on Dec 9, something the inquiry committee got to know later,” the official claimed.
Mr Tufail in his statement before the committee said he had mistakenly removed the dynamite from the office of his immediate boss, thinking it was a biscuit and had tasted it but had decided to throw it away, when it tasted weird.
The federal government had insisted that the whole case was based on misunderstanding as the dynamite had no trigger mechanism or detonator with it to cause its explosion.
