QUETTA, Jan 30: Several rockets were fired at a Frontier Corps camp and check-posts in the Pir Koh gasfield and the Nal area in Kahan while a powerful explosion rocked Hub, an industrial town in Balochistan on Monday.
Meanwhile, the gas supply to the Uch power plant could not be restored as the blown up gas pipeline could not be repaired.
Armed men resorted to rocket attacks and heavy firing in the Pir Koh area early Monday morning, which damaged several houses in a residential colony.
"Around 45 rockets and mortar shells were fired that exploded in different areas of the Pir Koh gas field," officials confirmed over telephone. They said that half a dozen rockets landed near the Pir Koh gas field while the OGDC officers’ mess was also targeted.
"The Pir Koh airfield remained safe during the attack as none of the rockets landed near it," DCO Dera Bugti Samad Lasi said. He said that some houses had been damaged in the OGDC employees’ colony.
Heavy exchange of fire was also reported from the Nal area in Kohlu district on Monday. Armed men fired eight rockets on the FC check post, the reports said. Rockets landed and exploded near the check post, they said.
"Security forces used heavy weapons for attacking tribesmen in the Kahan and Nal areas," Allah Bakhsh Marri, a tribal elder of the Marri tribe told this correspondent over telephone. He maintained that helicopter gunships were being used in Nal and Kahan and other areas.
He claimed that many rockets and mortar shells had exploded in residential areas.
Meanwhile, a powerful explosion occurred near the building of sessions court in Hub.
Police arrested 10 persons belonging to the Marri tribe from the New Kahan camp in Quetta on Monday morning. |
