PESHAWAR, Sept 1: A political tehsildar posted to Wana, headquarters of South Waziristan Agency, has emerged as the possible target of Friday’s bombing of Mattani Bazaar on the provincial capital’s outskirts.

A police source told Dawn on Saturday that Hashim Gul, a native of Adezai village in suburbs of Peshawar, was basically a tehsildar but worked as the acting assistant political agent (APA) and that he always avoided keeping security guards and used to move around unprotected whenever he visited home on leave.

He said on the day of the bombing, Mr Gul along with his brother Zahir, cousin Ajab Gul and a nephew had gone to Manki Sharif in Nowshera and on the way back, his official double cabin truck had developed some fault and they had parked it at a mechanic’s workshop.

He said terrorists had parked an explosives laden car by the truck and exploded it when the tehsildar was leaving the workshop and thus, killing 11 people.

The source said presence of mortar and rocket shells on the explosives laden car led to high death toll.

He said police were confused how terrorists learned about the tehsildar’s movement and attacked his truck.

When contacted, Rural Circle superintendent of police (SP) Khurshid Khan said the blast badly damaged bodies and they were recognised late night only after relatives of the victims
contacted police.

He said three committees led by DSP Saleem Khan, DSP Fazal Wahid and inspector Riaz and supervised by the DIG (investigation) would investigate the bombing and produce reports within a week.

Acting head of the Adezai Qaumi Lashkar Fazal Malik told Dawn that Mr Gul never took care of himself whenever he visited his village on leave and used to move freely despite the fact that terrorists were present everywhere to attack government officials and members of peace bodies.

Referring to the statements of police officials, he said the political tehsildar’s visit to the auto-workshop was not scheduled but it seemed that terrorists with explosives laden vehicles were waiting for him or they also had some other targets but missed them. He said the tehsildar’s family didn’t have any link with the anti-Taliban peace body but might have been
targeted due to his posting to Fata where government had initiated operation against the Taliban.

“We had also paid a visit to some people in the areas on the day but returned safely and it is possible that terrorists wanted us to target,” Mr Malik said and added that the volunteers of the peace body were very active to counter any such attacks.

Another leader of the peace body complained that on one hand, the Taliban were targeting them and on the other, the government had left them at the mercy of terrorists.

He said the peace body had been formed by the government through Peshawar police but their demands were not taken seriously.

An official of the Mattani police station said a case had been registered against unidentified terrorists.

Meanwhile, bodies of the four more bombing victims were buried at a graveyard of Khandaq village in Adezai Union Council, while the rest were buried at Mattani graveyard.

Police said the bombing toll had reached 12.