Insurgent’s handiwork: 17 Balochistan districts plunge into darkness

Four electricity pylons blown up in Dera Murad Jamali; FC head promises security for elections.

QUETTA:

Seventeen districts of Balochistan, including Quetta, plunged into darkness after miscreants blew up four electricity pylons in Dera Murad Jamali district on the night between Saturday and Sunday.

Four towers of the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) were sabotaged past midnight on Saturday in the Chattar and Bakhtiarabad areas, a spokesperson for the Quetta Electric Supply Company (Qesco) told journalists.

The four 220 KV pylons No. 434, 235, 247 and 249 sustained substantial damages, he added. As a result, supplies to 17 grid stations of the province, including the one in Quetta, were disrupted.

“We have managed to restore power supply to Quetta from a private power house,” the spokesperson said. “NTDC engineers are already working on tower No. 249 and 247 in the Bakhtiarabad area, while they are awaiting security clearance before sending their staff to the Chattar area to repair towers No. 247 and 249.

The Qesco spokesperson said Balochistan was facing a debilitating power crisis due to the closure of Guddu’s Och-Sibi transmission line. Forty-seven grid stations of the province receive 1,250 megawatt through this line – while now they are receiving only 150 megawatt from ICC Jamshoro which can only electrify Quetta. He said that power supply to other 16 districts could not be restored unless the damaged pylons were repaired.

Meanwhile violence continues unabated in the volatile province where two paramilitary Frontier Corps troops were wounded in a bomb attack on Sunday.



Miscreants remotely detonated a homemade bomb on Qambrani Road as an FC vehicle drove past, a spokesman for the paramilitary force said. “Two personnel of our force – Allah Nawaz and Samiullah – were injured in the blast,” he added.

The injured were driven to the Bolan Medical College Teaching Hospital. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. However, in the past similar attacks were claimed by Baloch insurgents who have been fighting a low-profile deadly insurgency since 2004.

Separately, the Frontier Corps also recovered a homemade bomb, weighing three kilogrammes, from a gas well in the Sui area of Dera Bugti.

Meanwhile, a special meeting was held at the FC headquarters to review security arrangements for the upcoming election. The meeting was briefed about the security arrangements to be put in place for trouble-free balloting in the province.

Attendees included the additional home secretary, commandant of Balochistan Constabulary, railways’ divisional superintendent, additional IGP, DIG National Highway police and regional police officer of Sibi Division.

Addressing the meeting, FC Inspector General Major General Ubaidullah Khan Khattak said that his force would make every possible effort, in coordination with other law enforcers, to ensure peace during the upcoming general election.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 1^st, 2013.