Punjab Timeline- 2007

Month/Date

Incidents

February 20

An Islamist "fanatic" shot dead the Social Welfare Minister of Punjab province, Zile Huma Usman, in an open court in her hometown of Gujranwala. Police said Muhammad Sarwar shot dead the minister during a brief power cut during the open court at Pakistan Muslim League House. Police arrested Sarwar immediately after the shooting and later said he is a religious fanatic opposed to women being independent, and had been implicated in four murders and two attempted murders in Gujranwala. "He considers it contrary to the teachings of Allah for a woman to become a minister or a ruler. That’s why he committed this action," the police said in a statement. Punjab province Law Minister Raja Basharat said "He (Sarwar) is basically a fanatic."  

The minister had reportedly been the target of several death threats since she had tried to organise a "mini-marathon" for men and women in Gujranwala in 2005. The race is attacked by Islamist extremists who consider it un-Islamic for men and women to run together. She is also attempting to organise another marathon in Gujranwala in late March 2006, and had again received death threats. "He killed her because she is not observing the Islamic code of dress. She is also campaigning for emancipation of women," local police officer Nazir Ahmad.

February 21

Intelligence agencies indicated that Taliban commanders plan to carry out 12 suicide attacks in various parts of Pakistan. Miatol, who belongs to a Punjabi tribe, is stated to be planning an attack in Dera Ismail Khan.

February 24

Three suspected militants are killed at Cheechawatni near Multan in the Punjab province when the explosives they are carrying on a bicycle detonated. Police said that two of the men are from a Madrassa (seminary) that had links with the banned Sunni group SSP.  

"Police have arrested 40 students and six teachers of Aziz-ul-Aloom, a seminary in Cheechawatni," a police official said. "Maulana Alam Tariq, the late Maulana Azam Tariq’s brother, is among the arrested," he informed. "The suspects are members of the Sunni extremist group, LeJ," police sources said. 

March 2

Police sources reports that three policemen are killed and nine others, including an anti-terrorist Judge Bashir Ahmed Bhatti, are wounded when a remote-controlled bomb attached to a bicycle exploded in Multan. Bhatti is travelling to his court when the bomb went off damaging his vehicle. "A bomb of high intensity is planted on a bicycle in front of a basketball stadium near the court, and it exploded as the car of the special anti-terrorism court judge passed. It is a targeted attack…… Two police gunmen died on the spot, and another nine people are injured: the judge, six policemen and two bystanders," said district police chief Munir Ahmed Chishti.

March 29

A suicide bomber blew himself up in an army training area in Guliana near Kharian Cantonment, killing two soldiers and injuring seven others.

April 24

A 25-year old woman, identified as Saima Bibi, was killed in a landmine blast in the Bhojpur area of Punjab province. The blast was reportedly caused by an anti-tank mine planted along the border by the army during the 2001-02 stand-off with India.

May 6

Unidentified gunmen shot dead two Shia clerics in a suspected sectarian attack at Chaubara town near Multan in the Punjab province. The attackers, reportedly Sunni militants, attacked the clerics who were sleeping in the guesthouse of a Shia leader. The clerics died on the spot while another guest, a Shia lawyer, was wounded.

May 14

The police arrested four members of an outlawed militant group from Lahore for their alleged involvement in bomb blasts and sectarian violence in Karachi. Police sources in Karachi, capital of Sindh province, confirmed the arrest of the four persons, identified as Wasif, Qari Faisal, Yousuf and Faizan, along with an unspecified quantity of ammunition and gunpowder. According to sources, they had recently received training in suicide bomb blasts at Wana in South Waziristan. However, the identity of the banned group was not disclosed.

In Lahore, most shops and markets were shut in support of the strike called by opposition parties and lawyers' bodies in protest against the violence in Karachi.

June 15

A farmer, identified as Abdul Waheed, was killed while his associate, Asif, sustained injuries in a landmine explosion in the Jang village of Sialkot in Punjab province. Sources said the landmine was planted in the bordering villages in 2001-02.

July 15

Lahore Police arrested four suspected terrorists, Mehram Ali, Muhammad Irfan, Haidar and an unidentified person, and foiled an attack on a mosque. Police recovered two 8-mm rifles, rifle-calibre 0.444, 250 cartridges and thousands of bullets from their possession car. Sources said that the suspects had confessed, during preliminary interrogation, to planning a terrorist attack on a mosque. They also told police that four other accomplices were surveying a different area of the city.

July 27

Three people allegedly involved in a suicide bombing and an attack on a police check post at Matta in the Swat district of NWFP were arrested from Lahore in the Punjab province. In Lahore, intelligence personnel raided a house near Niazi bus stand and arrested four suspects. One of the arrested, Aurangzaib, was later released. The rest have confessed to their involvement in the Swat bombing.

August 2

Police shot dead a suspected suicide bomber as he tried to attack a police training centre at Sargodha. A police personnel was also killed in the exchange of fire with the attacker. The policeman reportedly tried to stop the man as he ran towards the ground, where around 900 young recruits were taking morning exercises. "He was a suicide bomber but the police foiled his attempt," Sargodha district police officer informed. Police said the attack appeared to be a "continuation" of attacks on police and the Army in apparent revenge for the storming of the Lal Masjid in Islamabad.

A blast at the old GTS bus stand on GT road in Gujranwala injured five police personnel. The high explosive device was planted on a cart, carrying a sugarcane crusher near the traffic police office in the heart of the city.

August 20

A woman, Razia, was killed while four others, Sughra, Haleema, Abida and Rabia Basri, were injured in a grenade attack on their houses in the Green Town area of Chiniot. It is alleged that some women were running brothels from the attacked houses.

September 4

At least 30 people were killed and 70 others wounded in two suicide attacks at Qasim Market and RA Bazaar in the garrison city of Rawalpindi. The first suicide bomber targeted a bus that was carrying about 35 employees of a defence agency to their office near the Qasim Market, killing at least 20 people. Soon after, another blast occurred near the RA Bazaar police station, killing 10 more people.

September 13

At least 20 people were killed in a bomb blast in a high-security military area in Tarbela Ghazi near Islamabad. The bomb exploded in the mess of Karar Company of the Special Services Group. The communication and wireless system of security agencies was also reportedly affected by the explosion. Two unnamed intelligence officials said that it was a suicide attack, and that the bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the canteen where dozens of commandos were having dinner. The Tarbela facility, about 100km south of Islamabad, is the headquarters of the SOTF, a unit of the Pakistan Army's elite Special Services Group, which had been set up with American aid to neutralise al Qaeda. Media reports stated that the Karar Company had participated in the Lal Masjid operation.

September 19

Islamist extremists have reportedly warned the administration of a girl’s school in Taxila that they would bomb its building if the teachers and students did not wear the veil. The principal of a government high school received a letter from an unidentified man who threatened to bomb the school if the girl students and teachers did not wear veils.

September 26

Militants belonging to some unnamed banned outfits have started a new campaign of issuing life threats through letters to Christians, especially in the Punjab and NWFP for the last three months. Aftab Alexander Mughal, in his report on minorities' concerns in Pakistan, said Christians in Peshawar, Charsadda and Shantinagar had been receiving threatening letters for the last three months. The letters read, "We have already sent you letters some times back but you did not listen to our advice. We know that either you have torn or burnt the letters. Through this action you have committed blasphemy and you are liable to death. We will spare you only if you follow our demand otherwise you will be killed."

October 30

A suicide bomber killed eight people, including three police personnel, and injured at least 18 others, including 14 police personnel, when he blew himself up at a police picket near district courts in the cantonment area of Rawalpindi. President Pervez Musharraf had been meeting governors and chief ministers at Camp Office less than a kilometer away from the incident site. The fortified army posts at the checkpoint and the nearby gate to the residence of Joint Chief of Army Staff Chairman General Tariq Majid were scarred with shrapnel and spattered with blood. "A suicide jacket carrying 8 to 10 kilograms of explosives was used in the attack," an SIG expert said. The suicide bomber was aged between 10 and 20, Javed Iqbal Cheema, spokesperson for the interior ministry, said. The suicide bomber’s target was General Tariq Majid, who took office three weeks ago and who was inside the Military House at the time of the explosion. According to sources, he has been on the hit list of the militants ever since he supervised the Operation Silence in June-July 2007 to flush out militants from the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad.

November 1

A suicide bomber rammed his motorcycle into a Pakistan Air Force (PAF) bus, killing seven officers of the PAF and three civilians on the Faisalabad Road in Sargodha in Punjab province. At least 28 people were wounded in the attack. The bus was reportedly carrying PAF staff from the Mushaf Mir Airbase to Kirana Ammunition Depot when the bomber targeted the bus at approximately 6.45a.m.

November 6

Police used batons and tear gas to break up a rally of some 500 lawyers in Multan and arrested 10 people.

November 7

Police launch a massive crackdown against Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) leaders and workers to foil their Rawalpindi rally and arrested around 400 of the party’s workers.

November 11

Police temporality detained around 600 PPP activists while heading for the Lahore airport to welcome PPP chief Benazir Bhutto who was arriving from Islamabad.

November 12

Punjab Police as well as Lahore Police launched a ‘massive crackdown’ on PPP office-bearers and activists and detained hundreds of them. Punjab PPP information secretary Farzana Raja told Dawn that telephone calls and text messages received by her confirmed reports that the Punjab Police had launched the crackdown.

November 14

Hundreds of PPP activists, including Punjab President Shah Mehmood Qureshi and former member of the National Assembly Syeda Abida Hussain, were arrested. Shah Mehmood was arrested when he reached Faisalabad from Okara with the PPP’s long-march rally. Abida Hussain was arrested in the evening from her residence after she had led a demonstration in Jhang.

November 16

Police said that they have lifted the house arrest of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. "The government has withdrawn the detention order," Zahid Abbas, a senior police official, told Associated Press. "The house is no longer a sub-jail but security will remain for her own protection. She's free to move and anyone will be able to go to the house," Abbas said. Bhutto, a two-time former prime minister, was detained on November 12 to prevent her from leading a protest against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's declaration of a state of emergency.

November 21

The Lahore Police have started monitoring the activities of the banned Al-Rashid Trust (ART) on the advice of intelligence agencies, police sources told Daily Times. They said intelligence agencies had also asked the police to collect information about the assets and whereabouts of Al-Rashid Trust activists who had till now evaded scrutiny. The collected information may be used for a possible crack down on the Trust. "Intelligence reports have also claimed that activists of the trust were involved in ‘anti-state’ activity in the city," they added.

November 24

Two suicide bombers simultaneously targeted military personnel and installations at two different places in Rawalpindi, claiming over 32 lives and wounding 55 others. In the first attack that occurred at 7.55 am (PST), the suicide bomber while trying to enter the Hamza Camp, the main office of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), from the out-gate hit the staff bus of the agency. The blast, which occurred 200 metres from Faizabad at the Murree Road, killed over 30 personnel on the bus and among the guards standing at the main gate. The attack took place at approximately the same time near the GHQ when another suicide bomber blew up his car after hitting an Army check-post when he was intercepted while trying to infiltrate into the high security zone. Two Army personnel were killed while one was injured.

November 25

Security agencies investigating the two suicide bombings on November 24 in Rawalpindi raided a house in the Banni area of the garrison city and arrested two people suspected to be linked to an outlawed religious group. They also seized a computer and some other material.

December 9

Lahore Police arrested a wanted terrorist from the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan after a two-hour long shootout in Mandi Bahauddin. Muhammad Saleem alias Hafiz Bilal, a resident of Gujranwala, had planted a four kg improvised explosive device at the Bab-al-Imran mosque in Malakwal on June 30, 2006. Police also seized two Kalashnikov rifles and more than 2,000 bullets from the Saleem’s possession. Authorities had announced a PKR 500,000 reward for Saleem’s arrest.

December 23

Three potential suicide bombers were arrested near Dara Tang. However, one of their associates managed to escape from the incident site. The police recovered some suicide bomb jackets and other weapons from the possession of the three militants were identified as Wasif, Abdul Habib and Naib Buhadir. They were trained in Afghanistan, according to preliminary interrogation reports.

December 27

Benazir Bhutto, the former Prime Minister and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairperson, was assassinated in a gun and suicide attack as she drove away from a campaign rally just minutes after addressing thousands of supporters at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi. 30 more people were killed and over 100 others, including Benazir’s political secretary Naheed Khan and Sherry Rehman, wounded when a suicide attacker riding on a motorbike blew himself up after firing at Benazir who was waving to her supporters from her vehicle’s sun roof. PPP spokesman Farhatullah Babar stated that Benazir fell inside the vehicle after receiving bullets in her head and neck. Witnesses said three gun shots were heard before the suicide blast near her Black Lexus bulletproof vehicle. She later died at the Rawalpindi General Hospital. "The blast happened at around 5:10pm and the doctors pronounced her dead at 5:25pm," Babar said.

Following the assassination, PPP activists reacted violently in different cities in Punjab, Sindh, NWFP and Balochistan. Angry protestors took to the streets, pelted stones, burned government and private property and various vehicles besides chanting slogans against the government. At least 10 people were killed in different parts of the country, including two in Lahore, during the exchange of fire. Incidents of aerial firing were reported in different parts especially in Peshawar, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Karachi and Quetta.

Four boys were killed when a grenade they found by a canal near the central city of Dera Ghazi Khan exploded. Police said it was unclear why a grenade had been dumped by the canal, but the area is near the border with Balochistan province.

December 30

Two suspected suicide bombers were killed in Haroonabad in the Bahawalnagar district of Punjab province early when the devices they were carrying exploded prematurely in an apparent botched attack on former religious affairs minister Ejazul Haq. "My guess is that they were there to target Haq who had visited the area a day earlier," Bahawalnagar District Police Officer Zafar Abbas told Reuters. Haq was in the area to campaign for the next month’s general elections and had already left his house, which is 200 yards away from the blast site, by the time the explosion occurred, Zafar told NNI.