...hush-hush about it? Twenty two years after the huge Ojhri Camp arsenal blew up this day in 1988 the cause of the tragedy remains undisclosed, though its leftovers continued to kill people for several years.Reports indicate 5000 people died, during that incident.
It claimed its latest victim on February 17 in 2009 when a teenaged labourer was killed while digging earth in the Pindi Food Street and hit a buried projectile which exploded.
Over 1000 men, women and children were killed and many times more were wounded by the thousands of missiles and projectiles which exploded mysteriously and rained death and destruction on Rawalpindi and Islamabad on April 10, 1988.
The then Prime Minister Mohammad Khan Junejo appointed two committees — one military and the other parliamentary to probe the tragedy. But his action so infuriated President Gen Ziaul Haq that he dismissed Junejo on May 29, 1988.
While the then parliamentary committee, headed by old politician Aslam Khattak, went out with the Junejo government, the military committee under Gen Imranullah Khan submitted its report before the government’s dismissal.
Governments of prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif which followed Gen Zia’s death in a mysterious plane crash on August 17, 1988, failed to make public Gen Imranullah Khan’s findings.
Interestingly the Ojhri dump blew up on a day an American team was arriving to take account of the vast amount of military hardware that the US had supplied Pakistan to fuel the anti- Soviet jihad in Afghanistan.
It was a bright and sunny morning of April 10, 1988, when thousands of missiles and projectiles started raining down on Rawalpindi and Islamabad after huge and mysterious explosions at Ojhri Ammunition Depot, situated in the densely-populated Faizabad area.
Officially the death toll was 30, but independent estimates put the figure to 5000 . Prominent among those killed was a federal minister Khaqan Abbasi whose car was hit by a flying missile while he was on his way to hometown Murree. His son who had received head injuries and gone into a deep coma, died some four years ago, after remaining on artificial respiration for 17 years.
Chaos and rumours that followed the incident created panic among fleeing people. Many people thought that India or Israel had attacked Pakistan. Some said India had targeted Kahuta nuclear plant.The Ojhri Camp was used as an ammunition depot to supply arms to Afghan Mujahideen fighting against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. There were reports that an American defence audit team was about to undertake a visit to Pakistan for auditing of the stocks of the weapons provided to Pakistan Army and allegedly the camp was blown up deliberately to cover up the fact that some Stinger missiles had been sold off to other countries.
Some reports said the Ojhri Camp had about 30,000 rockets, millions of rounds of ammunition, vast number of mines, anti- aircraft Stinger missiles, anti-tank missiles, multiple-barrel rocket launchers and mortars worth $100 million in store at the time of blasts that destroyed all records and most of the weapons thus making it impossible for anyone to check the stocks.Political observers strongly believe that the then elected Prime Minister Junejo was sacked not because of his failure to enforce Islam, as claimed by Gen Zia, but due to a rift between the two over the Ojhri Camp investigations.
Soon after the incident, Mr Junejo had ordered an inquiry and announced on the floor of the National Assembly that the report would be presented before the House and those responsible would be taken to task.Some of the opposition members of the present Senate called for making the Ojhri Camp report public, but the Musharraf government took the position that the contents of these inquiries could not be made public “in the larger national interest.”
It is interesting that the opposition members, who called for making the report public, did not make any attempt to do it when their parties were ruling the country.According to a senior leader of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) in the second PPP government, an effort was made to institute an enquiry but it didn’t bear fruit.There was considerable resistance from the “concerned quarters.”Information Secretary of the Pakistan Muslim League-N Ahsan Iqbal also admitted that they had failed to make the report of Ojhri Camp tragedy public.
However, he noted that the PPP and the PML-N agreed in the Charter of Democracy to set up a truth commission to probe Kargil and other incidents and to inform the masses about the real causes behind these national tragedies which of course include the ojhri camp also.
It claimed its latest victim on February 17 in 2009 when a teenaged labourer was killed while digging earth in the Pindi Food Street and hit a buried projectile which exploded.
Over 1000 men, women and children were killed and many times more were wounded by the thousands of missiles and projectiles which exploded mysteriously and rained death and destruction on Rawalpindi and Islamabad on April 10, 1988.
The then Prime Minister Mohammad Khan Junejo appointed two committees — one military and the other parliamentary to probe the tragedy. But his action so infuriated President Gen Ziaul Haq that he dismissed Junejo on May 29, 1988.
While the then parliamentary committee, headed by old politician Aslam Khattak, went out with the Junejo government, the military committee under Gen Imranullah Khan submitted its report before the government’s dismissal.
Governments of prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif which followed Gen Zia’s death in a mysterious plane crash on August 17, 1988, failed to make public Gen Imranullah Khan’s findings.
Interestingly the Ojhri dump blew up on a day an American team was arriving to take account of the vast amount of military hardware that the US had supplied Pakistan to fuel the anti- Soviet jihad in Afghanistan.
It was a bright and sunny morning of April 10, 1988, when thousands of missiles and projectiles started raining down on Rawalpindi and Islamabad after huge and mysterious explosions at Ojhri Ammunition Depot, situated in the densely-populated Faizabad area.
Officially the death toll was 30, but independent estimates put the figure to 5000 . Prominent among those killed was a federal minister Khaqan Abbasi whose car was hit by a flying missile while he was on his way to hometown Murree. His son who had received head injuries and gone into a deep coma, died some four years ago, after remaining on artificial respiration for 17 years.
Chaos and rumours that followed the incident created panic among fleeing people. Many people thought that India or Israel had attacked Pakistan. Some said India had targeted Kahuta nuclear plant.The Ojhri Camp was used as an ammunition depot to supply arms to Afghan Mujahideen fighting against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. There were reports that an American defence audit team was about to undertake a visit to Pakistan for auditing of the stocks of the weapons provided to Pakistan Army and allegedly the camp was blown up deliberately to cover up the fact that some Stinger missiles had been sold off to other countries.
Some reports said the Ojhri Camp had about 30,000 rockets, millions of rounds of ammunition, vast number of mines, anti- aircraft Stinger missiles, anti-tank missiles, multiple-barrel rocket launchers and mortars worth $100 million in store at the time of blasts that destroyed all records and most of the weapons thus making it impossible for anyone to check the stocks.Political observers strongly believe that the then elected Prime Minister Junejo was sacked not because of his failure to enforce Islam, as claimed by Gen Zia, but due to a rift between the two over the Ojhri Camp investigations.
Soon after the incident, Mr Junejo had ordered an inquiry and announced on the floor of the National Assembly that the report would be presented before the House and those responsible would be taken to task.Some of the opposition members of the present Senate called for making the Ojhri Camp report public, but the Musharraf government took the position that the contents of these inquiries could not be made public “in the larger national interest.”
It is interesting that the opposition members, who called for making the report public, did not make any attempt to do it when their parties were ruling the country.According to a senior leader of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) in the second PPP government, an effort was made to institute an enquiry but it didn’t bear fruit.There was considerable resistance from the “concerned quarters.”Information Secretary of the Pakistan Muslim League-N Ahsan Iqbal also admitted that they had failed to make the report of Ojhri Camp tragedy public.
However, he noted that the PPP and the PML-N agreed in the Charter of Democracy to set up a truth commission to probe Kargil and other incidents and to inform the masses about the real causes behind these national tragedies which of course include the ojhri camp also.