Serene Islamabad of the past is a Red Zone today

ISLAMABAD lost its serenity decades ago but its citizens could not imagine that any part of it would turn into a ‘red zone’ as was done this month.

In the past two weeks the city was put on red alert thrice - first on June 2 after a terrorist attack outside the Danish embassy killed eight people; then three days later when police hunted for explosives-laden cars; and a third time on June 12 when the lawyers’ were marching on the capital to demand restoration of deposed judges.

Investigations in the June 2 attack suggested that a white car entered Street 21 of F-6/2. The security guard and police personnel deployed at the entrance of the street leading to the Danish embassy allowed the vehicle to enter without search as it had a diplomatic number plate. About four metres short of the embassy’s gate, the vehicle blew up.

The huge blast echoed through the capital city and left a crater more than a metre deep. The boundary walls of the embassy, and the UN-supported Devolution Trust for Community Development opposite to it, collapsed and their metal gates were blown inward.

Police soon discovered the incident’s links to FATA but its investigations stopped there and could proceed no further.

The car used in the explosion was snatched from the precinct of Mochiwala police station of Jhang on February 18. Its chasis number was replaced with the number of another car of same model which was snatched from Islamabad two years earlier which the owner had recovered from Fata without seeking police’s help.

That showed the terrorists had full information about the two stolen cars and used it to avoid any suspicion even if their car was checked. The investigators brought this to the notice of the interior ministry and the matter ended there.

There was some speculation that the terrorist’s target may not have been the Danish embassy but the motorcade of President Pervez Musharraf which was to pass through the Margalla Road. The terrorist’s car had tried to enter that road twice but could not because of the security for VVIP movement. It could be that the handler of the terrorist then decided to blow up the car close to the Danish embassy.

Three days after the car bomb attack, Islamabad and Rawalpindi were put on ‘red alert’ in the wake of intelligence reports that three explosive-laden vehicles had entered the twin cities.

Police had information that two Land Cruisers and a Toyota Corolla carrying explosives may be out to target local and foreign installations. Search for them ended when law enforcers spotted suspicious vehicles moving in Dhok Kala Khan and took action to seize them.

Six suspects, allegedly linked to the vehicles, were also arrested. They were shifted to Shalimar police station Islamabad for interrogation, which was put under heavy security. The seized vehicles, and harmful material in them, were sent to the Federal Investigation Agency headquarters.

That did not end the alarm, however, as new information sent the law enforcers on the roads again, looking for two Toyota Corollas and two red-coloured Margalla cars. It was rumoured that one of the intelligence agencies had put these “dangerous cars” as decoys to test the heightened security arrangements.

But the speculation in political circles was that it was all a drama staged by the state to break the momentum of the lawyers’ long march. The parliament area where the march was to terminate was declared a “red zone” to prevent terror attack or political violence on the occasion.

Credit for the peaceful end of the lawyers’ march and the success in interdicting explosives-laden vehicles was taken by the government and the law enforcers.

But who should be held responsible for the bloody acts of terrorism and the murder of Benazir Bhutto that took place before the advent of the present coalition government and despite “red alerts”?