{EOB}Exclusive: What Happened At Kharotabad

Zaki Khalid | The Writer

On May 18, five would-be bombers including three women were gunned down by Frontier Corps personnel at the Kharotabad area of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province in Pakistan.

Media reports just a few minutes after the take-down revealed that the would-be bombers were Chechen nationals, carried Russian passports which had Iranian visas issued on them. 

A while after this incident, the gleamy Chief Minister of Balochistan in a self-styled show of sympathy called for an inquiry into this incident. Nefarious yellow elements in the media picked up the case as "human rights abuse" and "killing". The reality of what happened that day is as follows (shared by our sources):

> Pakistan's intelligence received inputs that a van laden with explosives had entered into the country from Afghanistan via Chaman terminal. The intelligence input was direct HUMINT (HUMan INTelligence) from a security official

> Security was alert in the area for a day. Regional police identified the intruder vehicle based on the intel they received that foreigners were present in the van and tried to stop it, the van escaped

> Policemen deployed at a picket in Killi Khezi area near the airport informed police and law-enforcement agencies about a vehicle carrying some suspected foreigners (information was forwarded). The driver of the van ignored the police signal to stop and tried to speed away

> After failure by the police to stop the van twice, the FC was called. Frontier Corps personnel rushed to the area and cordoned it off. After reaching the Bazai-Cross, the suspects abandoned the vehicle and hurled two grenades at the FC checkpoint on the main roundabout, injuring three FC personnel. One of them sustained heavy injuries and succumbed to them. He passed away at hospital. His name was Lance Naik Muhammed Sajjad. No individual or media outlet made due mention of this attack on the soldier who later got martyred

Our sources who shared this news said it is highly unfortunate that people tend to cling to whatever the media feeds them such as the sensationalist report that one of the killed was apparently pregnant and had raised her fingers to surrender. Yet, when these same women would have been let go and who would have later blown up other women at a bustling market or in the middle of the city, the same people would have accused Pakistan's law-enforcement agencies of "criminal negligence" and in some far-fetched cases, of "involvement".

Laws follow evidence, not news. The FC was not alone engaging with the terrorists there, there were people too; ordinary people who witnessed the crime committed by the gang of those foreign miscreants and have already given their statements in the FIR registered with the police. The charge-sheet with all the necessary evidence have also been secured and archived. It is beyond doubt that the miscreants did stage a deplorable act of gaining sympathy before being eliminated before they went ahead with their heinous objectives. They were not killed in cold-blood.


Security officials speaking to us say that 2.5 kilograms of C4 explosives along-with 60 detonator bombs were found inside the van in which the supposedly "innocent" women were traveling along-with their male controller. They were not on a suicide mission. They were tasked to transport the ammo and explosives to anti-state elements. What is notable is that one of the women was blown up by her male controller once he suspected that the FC would capture her alive and take her for interrogation. Later on, they were cornered at Kharotabad area.


Instead of appreciating a successful counter-terror bust based on authentic HUMINT, the politicians, NGOs and yellow media groups have once again created a monster out of nothing. This goes to show that evidence and information do not influence the response from the Pakistani masses, rather emotions and corporate media rants do.