An assault on a monument of Pakistan’s founding father Mohammad Ali Jinnah by Baloch terrorists in the coastal city of Gwadar, in the volatile Balochistan region, has resulted in the devastation of the statue.
The monument, which was erected in June near Marine Drive – which is deemed a secure zone – was blown up on Sunday morning by explosives hidden under the statue, according to a storey in the Dawn newspaper on Monday morning.
Battalion commander Babgar Baloch of the outlawed terrorist organisation Baloch Republican Army claimed responsibility for the explosion on Twitter, according to BBC Urdu.
According to Gwadar Deputy Commissioner Major (retired) Abdul Kabir Khan, who was cited by the BBC Urdu as stating that the issue was being examined at the highest level.
He said that the terrorists who demolished Jinnah’s monument by placing explosives had disguised themselves as visitors and infiltrated the area.
This is an assault on Pakistani ideology, as shown by the destruction of the Quaid-e-Azam monument at #Gwadar. “I urge that authorities punish the culprits in the same manner as we punished those responsible for the assault on the Quaid-e-Azam residence in Ziarat,” Balochistan’s former Home Minister and current Senator Sarfraz Bugti said in a Twitter post.
121-year-old building occupied by Jinnah in Ziarat was bombed and raked with gunfire by Baloch terrorists in 2013, igniting a fire that raged for four hours and destroyed furniture and artefacts in the process. As a result of his TB, Jinnah spent the final few days of his life at that location. Later on, it was designated as a national monument.
Jinnah was born on December 25, 1876, and he served as the head of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until Pakistan was established on August 14, 1947, when the country became independent. As Pakistan’s first governor-general, he remained in that position until his death in 1948.
For years, Balochistan has been plagued by sporadic acts of low-intensity violence.
