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Army House being guarded by Pindi Police

By Umar Cheema in the News, Aug 5

ISLAMABAD: Although, the overall security of the Army House and the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) is a subject of the Military Police (MP) and the Military Intelligence (MI) yet this duty is now largely being performed by the Rawalpindi Police that have dedicated over 400 personnel, including police commandos, around the Army House and for the routes used by the COAS.

The Army House is the only area declared as a Red Zone in the garrison city, but the General Headquarters (GHQ) is not part of that zone, documents reveal and discussion with Regional Police Officer (RPO), Rao Iqbal, confirmed the deployment of the police in the Red Zone. The Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) offered no comment on a set of nine questions sent for the Army House’s version.

The police rules of 1943 carry a special chapter named “Guards” that governs the deployment of the police force around important buildings. It doesn’t mention the security of the Army House falling in the police domain. Any building other than those mentioned in the chapter of “Guards” has to be charged for security services. However, the RPO confirmed the Army House is not being charged for the services. But the police deployment for the security of the State Bank building and the Radio Pakistan are charged, Rao Iqbal told The News.

According to sources, the police deployment around the Army House is dated back to the days of ex-COAS-President Pervez Musharraf, who lived there as long as he remained in power.

The area was then declared a Red Zone, the police official said, requesting anonymity. This deployment was in accordance with the Blue Book rules that deal with the VVIP and Musharraf being the president was a notified VVIP. Other notified VVIPs are the prime minister and any visiting head of state. Nawaz Sharif has also been declared as a VVIP, given his political stature but there is no notification declaring the COAS as a VVIP, officials dealing with the Blue Book told The News. Now Musharraf is gone but the Army House continues to be a Red Zone and the police have not been withdrawn.

The deployment issue has irked many within the police who considered it unjustified, especially when the police force was already overburdened dealing with crimes and terrorism.

Details available with The News disclose a dedicated police force of around 250 personnel, largely constituted by police commandos, exclusively deals with the Army House and works in three shifts. Likewise, 160 policemen are deputed with two DSPs and two inspectors among them. They stand guard during COAS’ movement from the Army House to the GHQ, and other routes used by the COAS, according to police documents. Another 60 policemen have been dedicated for joint pickets of the Army and police. http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=30501

 

2. Suicide bomber kills Pak commander: By Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times, Aug 5

Islamabad: A suicide bomb attack killed four people Wednesday in the northwest Pakistan city of Peshawar, including a top national police official who appeared to be the target of the blast.

Sifwat Ghayoor, commander of a paramilitary police force called the Frontier Constabulary, was killed when a lone suicide bomber approached his car on foot at a traffic light and detonated explosives, authorities in Peshawar said. Two of Ghayoor’s bodyguards and a passerby were also killed. Eleven people were injured.

The attack occurred amid a relative lull in militant violence in recent months in Peshawar, a city of 3 million perched on the edge of Pakistan’s largely lawless tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan. Late last year, the city was hit by a devastating series of suicide bombings that killed hundreds of people.

Ghayoor "was targeted because he played a lead role in the war against militancy," said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province information minister.

Although the 25,000-strong Frontier Constabulary is drawn mostly from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, formerly North-West Frontier Province, its officers serve in all of the country’s provinces. Before becoming the constabulary’s commander, Ghayoor was Peshawar’s police chief.

The Pakistani Taliban was responsible for Ghayoor’s killing, said the group’s spokesman, Azam Tariq. The militant group has engineered numerous attacks on Pakistani police and intelligence agencies in the volatile northwest in the last couple of years.

Ghayoor’s assassination was the second targeted killing in northwest Pakistan in less than two weeks. On July 24, Hussain’s son, Mian Rashid Hussain, 30, was gunned down in the Nowshera region outside Peshawar. Two days later, a suicide bomber killed seven people outside the information minister’s house in an apparent attempt to kill the minister, who was not at home.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for both attacks http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-blast-20100805,0,5875377,print.story

 

3. Mosque in Karachi attacked; toll rises to 76

KARACHI, Aug 4: A hand-grenade attack inside a North Nazimabad mosque during prayers on Wednesday night left five people injured as the daylong violence which included arson attacks and incidents of firing claimed at least 22 more lives, raising the death toll to 76 in three days.

Police said at least two men in shirts and jeans and wearing helmets stopped their motorbike at the Sawari Masjid and Madressah Shams-ul-Uloom in Block N of North Nazimabad and one of them entered the premises.

“The Isha prayers were in progress when he hurled a hand grenade which exploded in the middle of the third row,” said an official at the Taimuria police station.

“The men escaped, leaving five people injured in the mosque”, he said.

Allama Maulana Ghulam Ahmed Siyalwi, a religious scholar and senior member of Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan (JUP), was among the injured. He is the patron-in-chief of the seminary attached to the mosque. http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/front-page/mosque-in-karachi-attacked-toll-rises-to-76-580

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