Roadside explosion: Three injured in a blast near Malpur village

Police are not sure of the nature of the blast, yet to rule out terrorism.

ISLAMABAD:

A low intensity roadside blast injured three people including a child on Murree Road near Malpur village on the outskirts of the city on Sunday.

The blast was heard as far away as Bari Imam, some 10 kilometres away from the site. Police officials cordoned off the area, covered in clouds of smoke, within minutes and the injured were taken to Polyclinic Hospital. Two of them were discharged after being given first aid.

The blast left a two-feet-deep and three-feet-wide crater at the median between the double road. Bomb Diposal Squad officials collected evidence from the site and sent it for examination. They said the blast did not appear to be planned. However, they were not willing to rule out terrorism.

“We heard a huge bang and rushed to the place. There were clouds of smoke covering the site of the blast,” said a police official who was present at the nearby Community Police Centre in Malpur.

35-year-old Waheed and his 12-year-old nephew Zafar Sagheer — residents of Malpur — suffered injuries as they were taking a shortcut on their motorbike. The explosives went off a couple of feet from them. They received wounds on the lower half of their body, with most of the injuries being on their legs.

Another car driver Salman Ahmed, a businessman from F-6/4, suffered minor injuries after his car went turtle due to the impact of the blast as he was close to the site at the time of the blast.

Ahmed, police said, panicked at the huge sound of the blast and lost control over his Toyota Corolla. The car hit the median and flipped. The driver received minor injuries to his arm.

Police were investigating multiple possibilities to ascertain the nature of the blast. However no terrorist hand was traced till the filing of this report.

A bomb disposal expert, however, said there are high chances that someone hurled an explosive device or accidentally dropped it there. “There was less than a kilogram of explosive material and it did not appear to be old,” he added.

He added that the explosives were completely consumed so the exact type of explosives and the detonating mechanism could not be ascertained. However, he said there were shrapnel in the explosives as well.

Some police officials also suspected that there were also chances, though very remote, that the explosives were buried at the place some time ago. “There is a possibility that explosives were buried at that place some time ago and they went off today as the place was not freshly dug up — shrubs had grown over the patch,” a police official said.

Experts said such un-detonated rockets or explosives could lie, not so deep, in the earth for years before going off whenever their fuses detonate the explosives.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 13^th, 2011.