Adil Najam
Today is April 10.
Nineteen years ago, today, on April 10, 1988 the military ammunition depot at Ojhri Camp, Rawlapindi, blew up and unleashed an inferno that sent all sorts of rockets all over Rawalpindi and into neighboring Islamabad. It also let to a sequence of events that led to the ouster of then Prime Minister Mohammed Khan Junejo and, depending on which conspiracy theorist you believe, to the death of then President General Mohammad Zia ul Haq.
Reader Dilnawaz of Bradistan Calling forwarded me an article by Tariq Mehmood on the Ojhri blast. Some excerpts worth reproducing:
21 years ago, on the 10th April 1988 Ojhrii dump in Rawalpindi was blown up. This was a deliberate act of destruction. Hundreds upon hundreds of missiles rained down on Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Over 5000 people were killed. Many, many thousands more were injured.
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Adil Najam
Reading Pakistani newspapers is not recommended for the weak of heart.
Open yours today, and here is what you find:
In Quetta riots have broken out and at least one is dead after the murder of Baluch nationalist leaders. The violence has also Karachi for the same reason and made a city already tense over the silly violence about an artwork at the Shanakht Festival even worse. Meanwhile, in Islamabad, the city has been placed on alert and security intensified after a request from foreign organizations. I stopped reading at this point knowing that Swat is already lost and FATA burns every day and things elsewhere are not hunky dorry either.
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Owais Mughal
After traveling from Karachi to Torkham by highway N5 (part I, II, III, IV and V) we will now branch our journey westward and travel Sukkur to Quetta portion by national highway N65. Just like our series on N5, we will try to cover small towns in more detail as compared to larger cities (Quetta and Sukkur) which are relatively more famous and better known.
Let us start our journey with a route map. Main milestones, landmarks and towns enroute have been marked with rectangles in the map.
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