ON the morning of July 6, residents of the congested Asghar Mall Road neighbourhood in Rawalpindi heard a loud explosion. It was around 10-15 a.m., around the same time as a plane flying President Pervez Musharraf to the flood-affected Balochistan province took off from the high-security Chaklala air base.
People rushed out of their homes, and within minutes the neighbourhood was swarming with policemen, plainclothes security personnel, bomb disposal units and sniffer dogs. They made a discovery soon. Fitted on the roof of a house were two anti-aircraft guns, both 1.5 metres long, and a sub-machine-gun fitted with a telescope. They also found 150 rounds of ammunition for the anti-aircraft guns. Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah said at a press conference that shots had been fired from the sub-machine-gun but the anti-aircraft guns had not been used. The house itself was empty, and neighbours said they had seen two people leave soon after the explosions.
Was this an attempt on the life of Musharraf? Officials told journalists privately that shots had been fired at the President's plane. The house was directly under the flight-path of the plane, but there was no official confirmation of this. Military spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad issued a statement denying rockets were fired on the plane. It left open the question if he was saying that the plane was not targeted at all, or denying reports of the kind of weapon used.
Nirupama Subramanian
