GILGIT, April 16 An explosion occurred on Thursday outside the residence of a senior banker in the garrison area of the city.

Police and eye witnesses said that the explosion damaged the gate of the residence of Malik Essa, senior vice president of National Bank of Pakistan, Gilgit, a senior police officer told Dawn.

The motive behind the incident is yet to be ascertained however the former vice-president of NBP had taken action against big defaulters in recent past and recovered millions of rupees from them, senior superintendent of police Ali Sher said.

Mr Essa had been appointed recovery officer after abolition of the zonal office of the bank from Northern Areas following reports in media about biggest bank scam two months ago.

The NBP sanctioned millions of rupees to some influential persons on fake documents inflicting huge loss to the national exchequer, the SP said.

The officer, who recovered record amount from bank defaulters in the last two years, had been receiving threatening calls and SMS messages from unknown persons, Mr Mushtaq Malik, son of the officer told Dawn.

“We reported the matter to the police but no action was taken against any one”, he said. The SP confirmed it and said that preliminary investigations suggest that those elements against whom the NBP officers had initiated vigorous recovery campaign might be behind the incident.