RAWALPINDI, Sept 10:  Two bomb threats at the city’s biggest public parks — one at Ayub Park located at the high security zone of the garrison city of Rawalpindi and the other Nawaz Sharif Park situated near cricket stadium — created panic and fear across the city and sparked security alert on Monday.

Within minutes of the threat calls, emergency services and police contingents — two teams of bomb disposal experts and intelligence officials reached Ayub Park — located close to the official residences of some senior army officers, while another bomb disposal team reached Nawaz Sharif Public Park at Shamasabad for possible bombs.

Specially trained by US experts, Explosive Incident Counter (EIC) measure squad of Rawalpindi police led by Waqar Ahmed reached Nawaz Sharif Public Park and spotted a suspicious object which looked like a bomb lying near a big swing.

A bomb disposal expert from Civil Defence said while quoting some witnesses that they had seen a young man dropping the “device” near a big swing and later fleeing from the scene. However, the policemen deployed at the park chased the suspect and tried to capture him but the effort proved unproductive as he disappeared from the scene.

The police evacuated the park area, though, there was no public rush at that time and later the bomb disposal experts started diffusing the ‘device’.

“It was a bottle containing some substance — some wires wrapped around it. It looked like a bomb, but it turned out to be a ‘dummy bomb’ as it contained chewing tobacco (snuff),” a bomb disposal expert said.

He added the pubic park was evacuated and closed for people due to the bomb threat.

The bomb disposal experts searched the public park with bomb-detecting equipment for nearly two hours but they could not find any explosive device.

Another bomb disposal experts’ team reached Ayub Park and started their search by using bomb detecting equipment but they found no signs of a bomb and declared the threat call as a ‘hoax’.