Pakistan seizes 14 tonnes of bomb-making chemical

Rescuers find more bodies in landslides

QUETTA, Pakistan, Dec 2, (AFP): Pakistani authorities seized nearly 14 tonnes of potassium chlorate, a key ingredient in bombmaking, from a bus in the country’s violent and unstable southwest on Sunday, officials said.

The haul was made when officials acting on a tip-off stopped a bus just outside the city of Quetta loaded with the volatile substance hidden under cartons of food, an official with the government paramilitary force said.

“We have seized some 13,900 kilograms of potassium chlorate from a bus and arrested five people,” Frontier Corps Captain Johar Sarwar told AFP. “The substance was hidden in sacks under various food items.” Frontier Corps spokesman Murtaza Baig confirmed the haul and said the substance could be used to make bombs and was so dangerous that only a simple detonator was needed to make a deadly device.

The bus was bound for the remote town of Naushki, around 110 kms (65 miles) west of Quetta, he said, adding that bomb disposal officers were summoned to check for detonators, but they found none. Baluchistan province, of which Quetta is the capital, is frequently hit by bomb attacks. The oil and gas-rich area borders Iran and Afghanistan, and suffers from sectarian violence, attacks by Taleban militants and a tribal insurgency. Baluch rebels rose up in 2004, demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region’s mineral resources.

Baluchistan has also been a flashpoint for violence between majority Sunnis and Shiites, who make up around 20 percent of the population. Supporters and survivors of the Bhopal gas tragedy participate in a torch rally in Bhopal, India, Dec 1. The Bhopal industrial disaster killed about 4,000 people on the night of Dec 3, 1984. The death toll over the next few years rose to 15,000, according to government estimates. (AP)

Also: MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan: Rescuers have found three more bodies after landslides in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, officials said Sunday, taking the confirmed death toll to 15, with three people still missing.

A military and civilian rescue operation was launched after heavy snows on Friday triggered two landslides at a remote outpost in the Kel area of the disputed territory near the de facto border with India.

“Despite bad weather and heavy snowfall rescuers found three more bodies yesterday (Saturday) and are searching for three more who are still missing,” local administration official Raja Saqib Muneer told AFP.

“So far 15 bodies have been recovered, including nine soldiers and six civilians.”

Disputed Kashmir has been the cause of two of the three wars between India and Pakistan since their independence from Britain in 1947.

But with separatist violence having dropped sharply following the start of a peace process in 2004, the greatest dangers facing soldiers stationed at remote outposts are often landslides and extreme weather conditions.

In April, 140 Pakistani soldiers were buried when a huge wall of snow crashed into the remote Siachen Glacier base high in the mountains in Kashmir. They have all been declared dead, although some of the bodies remain buried.

That tragedy renewed debate about how much sense it made for a country where millions live below the poverty line to maintain outposts in Siachen, dubbed “the world’s highest battleground”, at immense cost when violence had decreased.

And in February, at least 16 Indian soldiers on duty in the mountains of Kashmir were killed when two avalanches swept through army camps.

In Friday’s accident, a wall of mud and snow hit the outpost in the early hours. In this Dec 1, 2012 photo, members of Pakistani Hindu community react next to the rubble of a Hindu temple, which was destroyed on

Saturday by a builder, in Karachi, Pakistan. (AP) Hindus in Karachi are demanding retribution after one of their temples and some nearby houses were destroyed.

Pakistani Hindus have increasingly complained of discrimination and harassment in Muslim-dominated Pakistan.

Residents and members of the Hindu community said Sunday a builder with a police escort razed the small temple and some surrounding buildings.

Residents protested at the Karachi Press Club Sunday, demanding compensation as well as return of religious materials.

Ramesh Kumar Vankwani from the Pakistan Hindu Council said there is a long-running legal dispute between the builder and residents over the land, but it belongs to the Hindu residents.

Zeenat Ahmad, who runs the department in charge of military land, said a court order allowed some of the buildings to be razed, but she denied the temple was damaged. (AP)