Like other citizens of Islamabad and
Rawalpindi, April 10th 1988 was one of the longest and most
difficult day in my life. Late Saturday night I came back from Bahawalpur after
visiting my parents. Early morning when I was getting ready for work, I was
thinking that after a couple of days off, it’ll be a long day due to backlog at
work. It was a typically bright spring day during a working Sunday, but around
10.00 a.m. this pleasant day changed into hell for the citizens of the twin
city. During those days I used to work at Allama Iqbal Open University H-8
Sector Islamabad. Around 9:30 a.m. I was at the second block of the university
building and had been chatting with Professor Nazir Siddique in the hallway
when we heard a loud explosive sound with shockwaves. Those were the peak days
of the 80s proxy war between USSR and USA. Due to the 'blessings' of military
dictator Gen Zia and his military establishment, Islamabad was the centre of
CIA and ISI's activities to support militants as part of the proxy war against
USSR. As a result, terrorism was on the rise in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Just after the sound of a blast, one of our colleagues, a British national,
came towards us and asked about the blast. Prof Siddique told him that it seems
we aren’t safe here. The British man then ran towards his car. I laughed at
Professor Siddique and told him it looks like the blast was far from here,
maybe in PirWadhadi (Rawalpindi public bus stop), and that you scared that poor
man unnecessarily. I came back to the library building. We then heard another
extremely loud explosion and a series of blasts. We ran outside to see a
mushroom cloud in the sky from the Faizabad side. I then saw a few people with
cameras heading towards the roof of the IET (Institute of Educational
Technology) building next door to capture video. Until that point, we were
simply guessing the proximity of the blasts and feeling relatively safe. Within
a few minutes the situation changed, and missiles and rockets of varying sizes
started hovering towards us in all directions. At that moment everyone was in
panic and running for their lives. I went inside the library to pick some of my
personal stuff and ran towards the second block. On the way there I saw buses
leaving the university and went inside the building to look for my wife, but
she was not in her office, and when I came outside all the buses were gone and
very few people left in the university compound. Myself and a few co-workers
sheltered behind the first block of university – since rockets were coming from
Faizabad side so we thought it would be the safest place to stay until this
attack is over. I remember one of my colleague, RoohUllah, was with me and was
extremely terrified and praying to Allah for mercy and forgiveness and crying
for life. I was worried about my wife and considering going back to her office
to check again as she was in her last trimester of pregnancy and physically vulnerable in the situation. All of a sudden we
heard one university driver shouting that he had space for one person in his
van. RoohUllah asked me to get in the vehicle, but I denied and told him that
I’m going to go back inside the building to look for my wife, but he can get on
the van. As we were talking, somebody else already ran towards the van and the
vehicle left our sight. Then RoohUllah looked at me and said “Bukhari sb,
please pray for our lives” and then loudly he started asking Allah for mercy
and forgiveness once again. To make him calm, I told him “RoohUllah agar itnay
gunah na kartay tou aab moat sa itna dar na lagta’ (RoohRllah, if you didn’t
commit so many sins in life, then you wouldn’t be so afraid of death). Side
story – A couple of months back RoohUllah had brought a second wife home… and I
was teasing him in that regard saying he did bad to his first wife and he
should seek forgiveness from her. He then cried more loudly and asked how I’m
not scared from death. I then asked him to think about what we can actually do
in this situation where rockets are exploding and flying all over, other than
keeping calm and hoping it will be over soon. At that time I recall the
horrifying noise of flying rockets and air
polluted with gun powder smell. About a hundred meters from where we
were standing there was a bridge over a rain stream where someone had mentioned
we should go as it would be safer in comparison to where we were standing right
now. As we were about to move towards it, a big rocket hit the bridge, and we
then decided to stay wherever we were and awaited for destiny. After a while as
things quieted down, and we walked home as there were no other means of getting
around. After a long walk, when I entered Saidpur Road Rawalpindi, traffic was
jammed and some people were trying to bring injured people to hospital and some
volunteers were trying to control the traffic and making room for people to
bring injured to hospitals. There was complete chaos and disorder on the roads
and no signs of police or any government authorities. Still nobody knew what
exactly happened. On the way home I picked my wife from my in-laws and when we
reached home we saw one rocket had landed into our neighbour’s backyard and
damaged part of the house, but fortunately it didn’t explode and nobody was
seriously injured.
Later on the news we learned that the explosions
took place in Ojhiri Camp, a military ammunition depot located in Faizabad
Rawalpindi. According to official count 103 people died including ex federal
minister Khaqan Abbasi and over 1100 injured.
Ojhiri Camp was located in the middle of a crowded population, ISI
(Pakistani spy agency) was using that facility to store ammunitions for Afghan
militants fighting proxy war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan.
On April 12, 1988 Prime Minister Junejo
appointed a five-member inquiry commission headed by Gen Imranullah, he also
formed five-member ministerial committee to conduct an inquiry into the
tragedy. Qazi Abdul Majid Abid, Mir Ibrahim Baloch and Malik Naeem Ahmad Khan
were the members and Aslam Khattak was head of committee. Gen Zia was not happy
with this development and wanted an inquiry by men of his choice and this
created further tension between PM and president which led to the dismissal of
the PM Junejo government and the dissolution of the assemblies. There are
different theories about the Ojhri Camp disaster, but still nobody knows the absolute
truth and like other hundreds of tragedies by military generals in Pakistan,
this is also buried under the rug and nobody is responsible.
Few of the reference on Ojhri
Camp disaster:
BBC Urdu / Zafar Malik
https://www.bbc.com/urdu/pakistan-56690189
BBC Urdu / Zafar Malik
https://www.bbc.com/urdu/pakistan-56690189
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