Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti on Monday said security agencies had arrested an alleged “to-be suicide bomber” as they foiled a terrorist attack on Independence Day.
Addressing a press conference in Quetta alongside other top officials, the chief minister said: “On August 14, the suicide bombers were to target those innocent citizens who were celebrating Independence Day.”
He commended the security agencies, the Balochistan Counter-Terrorism Department, and the police for saving the province from “huge destruction”.
CM Bugti then aired a recorded statement of an arrested man, who said he had done a Master’s from Quaid-i-Azam University and a PhD from Peshawar University, and was working as a Grade-18 lecturer. The man said his wife was also a government employee.
After the video statement aired, CM Bugti noted that the information shared was “not in great detail”, so that ongoing investigations were not affected.
He recalled the Nov 2024 Quetta Railway Station bombing, in which “32 precious lives were lost and 50+ were injured”, and explained how the arrested lecturer was allegedly involved in facilitating the attack.
“He (the lecturer) had him sit on a motorcycle and dropped him near the railway station, and after that, handed him over to another handler about 1 kilometre away from the railway station,” Bugti said.
Stating that the Balochistan militancy issue was attributed by some to “them being deprived”, the chief minister asked rhetorically: “How are these people deprived?
“The mother is still receiving a pension which means she was a government employee, his wife is also a government employee, he himself is a Grade 18 [officer], has studied and done a PhD on Pakistani scholarship, brother is an employee in Reko Diq [project], which means he was not deprived iin any way,” Bugti added.
Terming the stated reason of deprived people a “story”, which he noted was also echoed in a multi-party conference in Islamabad yesterday, Bugti said it was “an attempt to legitimise this entire fight against Pakistan”.
Recalling that the neighbours resisted when the CTD went to arrest a “to-be suicide bomber” connected with the lecturer, the chief minister highlighted: “I want to tell the people of Balochistan: we filed an FIR (first information report) against all of them, every one of them is arrested.”
‘I went against the law and betrayed the state’
In his statement, the lecturer detailed that he got introduced to three men affiliated with “an organisation” during his 2020 visit to Quaid-i-Azam University, and that two of them were later killed. The lecturer said two men, Dr Habetan and Feh Khaliq, then got him to join the militant group and had him meet with Basheerzai.
“All these introductions were made through Telegram,” the man said, referring to a messaging app known for privacy features like secret chats, self-destructing messages, and anonymity. He said he facilitated “three acts” on the group’s directives when he went to Quetta, adding that his alias in the organisation was Feh Hameer.
Recalling how he assisted the group as told by Dr Habetan and Feh Khaliq, the lecturer said he provided a place to a militant who got injured in a clash in Kalat. “I handed him [to another person] before the incident, and the next day, he died in the railway suicide bombing here,” he said.
He then recounted another similar incident, where the man he gave shelter to for seven to eight days was “about to be used in some event of August 14”. The lecturer also confessed to having bought a pistol that was used “in targeting security forces and government employees”.
The lecturer said: “These are the acts I have done, the facilitation I have done. If it’s considered, the state has given us everything — respect, pride, a job — and even to my wife, but despite this, I went against the law and betrayed the state.
“I am deeply ashamed that I remained involved in these actions and regret it, and the aim of this video is that the coming generations, youth, students here save themselves from these groups spreading anarchy,” he added.
More to follow