7-member JIT to investigate suicide attack on ANP leader Haroon Bilour

PESHAWAR: The Caretaker Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Justice (R) Dost Muhammad Khan Wednesday formed a 7-member joint investigation team (JIT) to investigate different dimensions and motives suicide attack on ANP leader Haroon Bilour in Yakatoot area.

He also formed a sub-committee of the cabinet to be headed by the Caretaker CM to review and evaluate the reports of the JIT twice a week. He directed to bring the perpetrators, the handlers and facilitators of Yakatoot suicide attack to justice as expeditiously as possible.

He was presiding over an emergency meeting of the provincial cabinet and administration at CM Secretariat at after midnight soon after the blast and last till Wednesday morning. He approved compensation for the “Shuhada” and injured of the suicide attack.

The meeting was briefed about the initial details of the suicide blast and the information collected from the scene. The CM assured the provincial government would do all within its means to bring the perpetrators to justice.

It is very much necessary to investigate and bring to limelight the actual motives behind the suicide attack because the government wanted peaceful, free and impartial elections and was busy to take all the required steps in this regard. Dost Muhammad Khan gave a complete plan for effective security mechanism that also included the constant surveillance and monitoring, the new method of investigation, enhanced coordination and intelligence gathering and sharing.

He also directed to monitor all entry routes to the province both frequented and unfrequented, adding the enemy is invisible, the situation is challenging and the existing security shield lacks the required level of strength and durability that necessitated for extra ordinary security arrangements.

He reminded the law enforcing agencies of his previous directions for reinforcement, relocation and redeployment, necessary for the peaceful conduct of elections in the province.

He said the anti state elements victimizing soft targets to sabotage the elections but they would never succeed, he added. “We have a limited mandate for the transparent, free and fair elections and we have to provide a base of this.

Billions of rupees have been spent to conduct elections letting the people exercise their choice in favour of their candidates,” he reminded. He said that the incident like Yakatoot which took place in a street could have been averted simply plugging the two ends of the street.

He directed the police to be more vigilant in the given situation. Caretaker CM said the incident exposed the loopholes in the security shield and directed for extra security measures to cover the vulnerability of certain areas. Dost Muhammad Khan assured free treatment for the critically injured persons of the terrorism attack.

The government would bear out all the expenditures, he added. Caretaker CM said the federal government had agreed to repatriate Frontier Constabulary to the province to boost its security shield.

He directed for enhanced security for the leadership and candidates of all political parties. He appealed leadership of political parties to cooperate with the caretaker set up for the transparent, fair and free elections in order to avert the danger of sabotaging the elections.

Caretaker Chief Minister gave a comprehensive plan to security agencies and asked them to implement the plan in letter and spirit. The meeting attended by Provincial Ministers Asadullah Khan Chamkani, Abdur Rauf Khattak, Zafar Iqbal Bangash, Anwarul Haq and Muhammad Rashid, Chief Secretary, I.G.P., administrative secretaries condemned the inhuman and heinous attack of suicide on the political corner meeting which took the lives of Haroon Bilour and others and injured others.

The meeting offered Fateha for the Shuhada of the suicide blast and early recovery of the injured.