Pesco facilities in the line of fire

Despite attacks, the Sheikh Muhammadi grid station was left virtually unprotected.

PESHAWAR:

The militant attack on the Peshawar powerhouse didn’t take place in isolation. Just like schools, Pesco installations have been a primary target for the militants over the years.

According to the Khyber Pukthunkhwa police record, militants first started blowing up electricity towers in 2007. In the six years since, 110 such attacks have been reported. Thirteen attacks took place in the year 2007, 23 in 2008, 29 in 2009, 8 in 2010, 19 in 2011 and 16 in the year 2012. In 2013, two such attacks have taken place in Peshawar alone.

In the past, however, most of the attacks were limited to the bombing of towers only in January 2012 the militants turned their guns onto human targets as well.  In that month, 11 Pesco workers were kidnapped by Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) militants from the Badabher area for the first time. Three of them are still in the custody of militants to this day while others have been released as they were working for a contractor and not Pesco.

The Sheikh Muhammadi grid station, which was badly damaged by militants a few days ago, has repeatedly come under rocket attack in the past. January 2011, militants entered and planted several bombs in the Mattani grid station, partially destroying it. Last month a Pesco vehicle was destroyed in a bomb attack in the Faqirbad area of the city.

Pesco employees believe that they are being attacked because they are government employees and because Pesco installations, being spread out across the province, present easy targets.

“In the past the ex-deputy speaker Khushdil Khan Advocate raised an Aman Lashkar in his constituency of PK-10 in order to protect the electricity pylons and schools and people supported him. But then the LI started sending threatening messages to each elder cooperating with Khushdil, and so the process was abandoned due to lack of popular support,” said a local elder and head of Masho Gager Aman Lashker Mukamal Shah while talking to The Express Tribune.

“It is not an easy task to protect every electricity tower,” said a Pesco official, adding, however, that protecting grid stations is possible with the deployment of a sufficient number of police.

Despite the fact that the Sheikh Muhammadi Station had been repeatedly attacked, only one regular police constable, Muhammad Fayaz, had been deployed. The other two constables, Muhammad Yasin and Khalid Saeed, were community police constables.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 4^th, 2013.