QUETTA:
Evidence against the Frontier Corps personnel and police mounted after a report compiled by the bomb disposal squad said that no suicide jacket or explosive material was recovered from either the crime scene or the bodies of the suspected Chechen “terrorists” killed in an alleged encounter a few days ago.
The report compiled by the first technical bomb disposal squad team, which reached the site to search the vehicle in which the suspects drove from Kuchlak to the Killi Khezi area, where the incident took place, said: “The team searched the vehicle bearing (registration) number CJ-5862 of Karachi and found 50 electric detonators placed in separate bottles of shampoos and two timer stop-watches. No explosive material was recovered from the vehicle.”
The report said that as the corpses of the “three women and two men were lying near the FC picket, and at the time it was suspected that the deceased were wearing suicide jackets”.
“A second team of BD (bomb disposal squad) was called to search the bodies,” said the report.
The second team wrote: “The BD team searched each (of the dead) body carefully and found no suicide jacket or explosive material on them. Eight passports were recovered from the cloths of slain women. Two safety levers of hand-grenades were found near the dead bodies while a safety pin was recovered from the finger of the one of the deceased men.”
The report further said that the material recovered from the dead bodies was later handed over to SHO Fazalur Rehman at the Airport Road Police Station.
The police claims that the suspects were killed in “an explosion” was already contradicted after the autopsy report said that all of the victims had died of bullet wounds.
There are still many unanswered question regarding the incident. Some question the logic of the presence of a seven-month pregnant woman among the “terrorists”, others ask if the suspects were unarmed and were not carrying any explosive material, security personnel could easily have apprehended them, why did they need to open indiscriminate fire upon them?
The Balochistan government issued a notification for the constitution of a Judicial Tribunal under the supervision of Justice Hashim Kakar of Balochistan High Court to investigate the Khartoabad incident.
Sources said police and the Frontier Corps were also conducting internal inquiries.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 22nd, 2011.
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