Cops lodge grenade explosion case

Napier Police registered on Saturday night, the case pertaining to the grenade explosion near Risala police post on December 18. The case has been registered under the sections of the Pakistan Penal Code, the explosives act and the anti-terrorism act on the state’s behalf.

According to the text of the FIR, Napier Police ASI Abdur Rasheed was patrolling in the area with a police party in the police van on the night of December 18, when they received information from the city base that two men have been injured in an explosion in Seetal Das Compound near Risala police-post. It states that ASI Rasheed arrived on the spot and found that four men - Babar Shahid, Muhammad Bilal, Daniyal son of Arshad Mehmood, and Daniyal son-of Noor Khan, warming their hands with a fire they had started in a sewerage pipe. Babar picked a stick like tube from the ground around 10:45pm to check the pipe, but it exploded. As a result, Babar and Daniyal son of Noor Khan were injured.

The FIR states that ASI Rasheed went to Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital with his police party, where the injured were shifted, and after gathering information from the crime scene, he recorded the statements of both the injured. He informed the bomb disposal squad as well but the squad couldn’t determine the cause behind the explosion immediately after inspecting the site.

The bomb disposal squad Inspector Ghulam Mustafa Arain and his team prepared the report after examining the site the next morning and suggested in the report that the blast had been caused by the explosion of a detonator (without hand grenade body), which was thrown by one or more unidentified men.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 21^st, 2020.