Senior journalist Hamid Mir escapes assassination bid

Remote-controlled device weighing half a kilogram was planted under front passenger seat.

ISLAMABAD:

Senior journalist and Geo TV anchor Hamid Mir escaped an assassination attempt on his life on Monday when the police defused a bomb planted under his car.

The bomb was apparently planted directly under the front passenger seat when the car stopped at a market en route to his house.

Mir told Golra police that his chauffeur, Muhammad Ayaz, spotted a bag under the car and informed him. The Bomb Disposal Squad was subsequently called to Mir’s residence in Sector E-11/3.

Upon arrival, bomb squad members opened the bag and found about half a kilogram of explosives attached through wires with a detonator and a battery. The device was remote-controlled.

“The detonator was a low-intensity device which was designed to ignite the main explosives,” a BDS official said. The explosives were enough to destroy the whole vehicle, according to him. When asked why it was not detonated, a BDS official said one wire from the detonator to the explosives was detached. The police said investigations were ongoing. “It is too early to say when and where the bomb could have been planted,” said the officer leading the investigation.

“It’s a message to me as well as Geo and the journalist fraternity in Pakistan,” Mir told the television channel. “They want to stop us from speaking the truth, but I want to tell them that we will not be deterred.” He did not name any group he thought might be behind the act.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 27^th, 2012.