ATTOCK, May 5: A Frontier Corps (FC) personnel was arrested after the police recovered detonators along with a safety fuse from his possession here.   

District Police Officer (DPO) Abdul Kadir Qamar told Dawn on Sunday that policemen stopped a Rawalpindi-bound coach (E-3224) coming from Kohat at the Khushalgarh checkpost on the Kohat-Pindi road on May 3.

During checking, they recovered five detonators along with a 23-foot-long safety fuse from the possession of one of the passengers.

The accused was shifted to the Jand police station where he was identified as Khalid Mehmood, a resident of Haripur.

During the preliminary interrogation, Mehmood said he was working as a bomb disposal expert with the FC at Thal Cantonment near North Waziristan.

The DPO said the accused had stolen the explosive devices from his unit and was taking them to his native village for blasting stones for the construction of a house.

After being informed, the FC authorities reached the district police headquarters and verified his identification, said the DPO.

However, the FC officials refuted the statement of the accused that he had stolen the explosives from his unit.

The DPO said a joint investigation team had started probing the case.

The police have obtained two-day physical remand of the accused from the court of a judicial magistrate.

In reply to a question, the DPO said so far no link between the arrested FC man and any terrorist organisation had been established.