Nuclear monument destroyed

Police were searching for clues to arrest culprits who earlier this week set ablaze the monument of Chagi Mountain – the site of Pakistan's first series of nuclear tests – located at Jinnah Park in Karachi, officials have said.

The replica of the mountain has been totally gutted and some witnesses claimed that they saw a few men setting it on fire.

Tariq Jameel, the chief of Karachi police, however, said it was too early to say whether the fire was sabotage or an accident.

"We have launched an inquiry and are reviewing all the aspects," he said. "We have also contacted the Karachi Electric Supply Corp. to find if a short-circuit sparked the fire."

But another police official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that most likely the fire appeared a deliberate act by miscreants.

"The power connection of the monument was suspended for the past several weeks," he said. "The fire could not be caused by short-circuit," he said.

Sabotage appears more likely, he claimed.

Many political and civil society groups in the past had criticised the successive governments for using replicas of Chagi mountain, Ghauri and Shaheen missiles and other military hardware, including discarded fighter planes, tanks and guns as monuments all over the city.

They had long been demanding that at least Chagi mountain and missile replicas be removed.