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Punjab Timeline- 2005

Month/Date

Incidents

January 28

Unidentified people destroyed a gas pipeline to Lahore in the Punjab province, suspending gas to more than half of the city. A bomb planted beside the pipeline – 18 inches in diameter – was blown up near Head Baloki, cutting of gas to the southern part of Lahore, Changa Manga, Pattoki, Kasur and Manga Mandi. Rasheed Lone, Managing Director of Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited, told that terrorists were responsible for the act.

January 31

Rail traffic on the Dera Jacobabad section of Dera Ghazi Khan district in the Punjab province is reported to have remained suspended for more than four hours after a bomb explosion damaged portion of the track near Darwaish Lashari railway station. The explosive device went off at 2.45pm (PST), two hours before the arrival of the Peshawar-bound Khushhal Express. However, no casualty was reported from the incident site.

February 11

Unidentified terrorists blew up the Parco pipeline in the Dera Ghazi Khan district.

February 13

A low pressure pipeline of the Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL) ruptured due to a bomb blast near Muridke in the Punjab province. However, no loss of life or damage is reported.

March 6

A Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) terrorist, Haji Nisar Ahmad, who is wanted in different terrorist cases across Pakistan, was arrested at Okara in the Punjab province. The Police arrested two of his accomplices from Rawalpindi and Sahiwal and based on their information arrested Nasir.

March 18

Police arrested two suspected terrorists near Mono Nager on the GT Road in Punjab province and seized a large cache of arms and ammunition from their possession. District Police Officer, Zafar Iqbal Awan, disclosed at a press conference that they had received information on a possible attempt to smuggle arms from the North West Frontier Province to Punjab by some terrorist group. The seizure included 180 hand-grenades, 21,415 bullets, 428 Kalashnikov magazines, 18 pistols, 26 AK-47 rifles and 23.97kg explosive material.

April 30

A bomb exploded on the main Multan-Karachi railway track, damaging a 10-foot long section of the track and disrupting train traffic. Ahmed Mukhtar, Senior Superintendent of Police for Multan Railways, said a high-intensity bomb exploded near Pul Sandani, three kilometres from Sadiqabad, even as no casualties are reported in the blast.

May 2

The Government announced the results of a countrywide Afghan census and disclosed that there are 3,047,225 Afghans living in Pakistan, including refugees and residents. Sajid Hussain Chattha, States and Frontier Regions Secretary, Najam Hasan, Chief Census Commissioner and Guenet Guebre-Christos, United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Pakistan, told a news conference in Islamabad that the census carried out between late February and early March counted a total of 3,047,225 Afghans who had arrived after December 1, 1979. The census determined that there are 1,861,412 Afghans in North West Frontier Province, 783,545 in Balochistan, 136,780 in Sindh, 207,754 in Punjab, 44,637 in Islamabad and 13,097 in Pakistan occupied Kashmir.

May 12

Suspected terrorists blew up the main Sui gas transmission line near Chanda Qilla bypass at Gujranwala, injuring two people and causing gas shortage in Gujranwala and the industrial area on Grand Trunk Road.

May 30

Three persons are arrested from Sargodha in the Punjab province on suspicion of having links to the May 27-suicide attack at a Shia mosque in Islamabad in which at least 25 people were killed and over 100 wounded. The three, Zafar Iqbal, Mansoor Ahmad and Saeed alias Mistri, belonged to the outlawed Sunni group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ).

May 31

The Lahore Police is reported to have arrested a suspected member of the LeJ from Harbanspura. The man, identified as Qazi Manzoor and hailing from southern Punjab, had escaped from Karachi and the Lahore Police arrested him from a house in Harbanspura and subsequently took him to an undisclosed location for interrogation.

June 3

One person is killed and ten others, including two children, are wounded in an explosion at Aiman Abad, some 15 kilometers from Gujranwala.

June 16

A bomb explosion damages one pillar of the tower supporting the main power transmission line at Kher in the Dera Ghazi Khan district, while three other devices planted nearby failed to explode.

July 5

An Afridi tribesman, identified as Amanullah Shah, is arrested at Attock after police recovered 13 assault rifles, 12 pistols and more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition in his car.

July 16

The Punjab government arrested 10 people from Faisalabad, Gujranwala and Lahore during a crackdown against militant outfits. Sources said the crackdown was launched after the media reported that some London bombing suspects had stayed at various seminaries.

July 19

At least 30 cadres of outlawed groups are arrested in the Punjab province, including 11 at Lahore and three in Faisalabad. A senior leader of the Jaish-e-Mohammed, Maulana Ilyas Ghumman, is among those detained at Sargodha.

July 21

Security agencies targeted activists of banned religious groups, including Hizb-ul-Tehrir, and arrested dozens of militants, clerics and activists in various parts of the Punjab province. Sources said more than 50 people were arrested in Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan, Sargodha, Jhelum and other parts of the province.

July 22

Lahore Police detained at least 150 people on charges of misusing loudspeaker in mosques and another 15 suspected cadres of outlawed groups, as part of the ongoing crackdown against Islamist extremism in the Punjab province. Most of the arrests –- 80 — are made in the Multan division. Those arrested belonged to the outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Toiba and Hizb-ul-Tehrir. Some Madrassas (seminaries) are also raided, and at least three offices of the proscribed groups are sealed in southern Punjab.

July 24

The Punjab police continued its raids on outlawed outfits and arrested at least 47 people, including some Khateebs of mosques, under Anti-Terrorism Act and Amplifier (loudspeaker regulation) Act.

Hasan Iseem Afzal, Home Secretary of Punjab, stated that Pakistan will try over a hundred members of different militant groups, detained in the central Punjab province over the past week under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

August 7

Security agencies are reported to have arrested an alleged al Qaeda operative, identified as Osama bin Yousuf, from the Sargodha Road area of Faisalabad.

August 12

Hate-provoking religious literature is reportedly being openly and freely disseminated in Government offices, including those of senior bureaucrats in the Punjab Civil Secretariat. A report stated that an unidentified person visited the Civil Secretariat and freely distributed extremist religious propaganda material, including the latest issues (August 2005) of monthly newspaper Majalat-ul-Dawa published from Lahore, the weekly newspaper Ghazwa and another monthly newspaper for women called Tayyabaat.

August 16

Security agencies have identified 18 Afghan settlements, located in different parts of Lahore, capital of the Punjab province, and names of 70 Afghanis involved in smuggling weapons and supplying them to the outlawed religious organizations. The agencies have reportedly gathered evidence that over 40 minor and large Afghan groups have links with outlawed religious groups, providing them weapons in large numbers which are later used in terrorist activity in Lahore and elsewhere.

September 11

Three of the four pillars of a high-tension power supply line tower near Sakhi Sarwar on Dera Ghazi Khan-Quetta Road are destroyed by a powerful bomb explosion. There is, however, no suspension of power supply as the tower stood intact on the fourth pillar. The transmission line feeds Balochistan’s tribal areas along the Punjab border. It is reportedly the eighth sabotage activity in the district during the last five months and second attempt on a power installation.

September 14

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao informed that five top leaders of banned religious organizations were arrested in different parts of the country in the last two days. However, he did not disclose their names and group affiliation. Talking to journalists after the inauguration of the Islamabad Highway, the minister said these arrests were made in the North West Frontier Province, Punjab and Sindh. He also said 190 leaders and activists of banned groups had been arrested during the current operation.

September 17

Nine terrorists are reportedly arrested during cordon and search operations by the troops in the Dua Toi and Goor Waik areas of North Waziristan. The arrested persons belonged to Punjab and the North West Frontier Province.

September 22

Personnel of the Customs Intelligence (CI) in North West Frontier Province seized a large quantity of silencer fitted AK-47 assault rifles that were being smuggled from Dara Adamkhel to the Punjab province. A senior CI official informed at a press conference in Peshawar that 23 automatic/semi automatic riffles, 67 magazines and 13,300 bullets had been recovered from a truck. Three persons, Alam Khan, Khalil, and Mohammad Islam were arrested.

September 25

Gas supply to Punjab is suspended after a pipeline blast near Kandhkot in the Sindh province. The supply is suspended after a pipeline of 60-inch diameter from Sui to Punjab is destroyed after a bomb blast in the jurisdiction of the Ghulam Sarwar Sarki police station.

September 29

Police in Sargodha foiled an attempt to plant explosives in the district courts and arrested an alleged terrorist. The police seized about three kilograms of explosives material along with a detonator, hand-grenades and a battery from the accused.

October 7

Eight persons are killed and 19 others are injured when unidentified assailants opened fire in an Ahmadiyya place of worship at Mong village near Mandi Bahauddin in the Punjab province.

October 22

The Punjab Government has reportedly re-arrested 20 activists of proscribed sectarian groups under Section 11-EEE of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997. Punjab Home Department sources said that the activists were re-arrested soon after their release on October 19, after being jailed for 90 days. The activists belong to Khoshab, Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar, Toba Tek Singh, Lahore and Hafizabad.

November 1

A bomb exploded at village Nigahi in the Jhang district, killing 11-year-old Mujahid Hussain and injuring two women and a man.

November 6

Security agencies detained 32 activists of banned religious organisations during Eid celebrations ahead of the cricket Test match between Pakistan and England. The Government has prepared a list of 190 activists belonging to Jaish-e-Mohammed, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and other terrorist outfits and arrested 32 of them from Multan, Bahawalpur, Sargodha and Faisalabad.

December 7

The Lahore Police claimed to have arrested five suspected terrorists belonging to the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) for carrying out bomb blasts in Punjab and Karachi.

December 13

Police arrested Ihsanullah Shah alias Bara Shah, a member of the outlawed Sunni group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, from the Sadiqabad area. The government had announced a reward of Rupees 500,000 for his capture. Police officer Jamaat Ali Bakhari informed that Ihsanullah Shah is the kingpin in weapons supply to terrorists.

December 17

Police arrested an activist of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Toiba outfit who was allegedly involved in running a publishing outfit. Sadique Moavia was wanted in two cases lodged with the South Cantonment police station and another one with the Muridke police. Sadique is allegedly involved in fanning sectarian disharmony across Punjab through provocative material being published in his magazine, Zarb-e-Momin, police said.

December 28

Punjab Government decides to start an operation against foreign seminary students to deport them before December 31. A television channel quoted government officials as saying that 81 foreign students are studying in the Punjab province. They belong to Afghanistan, Philippines, Jordan, Bangladesh, Thailand, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Portugal, Chad, Ethiopia, Tanzania and China.

 

 

 

 

 
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