Islamabad: Pakistan has razed the three-storey house of Osama Bin Laden about eight months after he was killed by US commandos in a raid on the house last year.
The demolition of the building in the garrison hill town of Abbottabad, 50km northeast of Islamabad, was completed on Sunday in a two-day unannounced operation in which heavy machinery was used by workers, officials and witnesses said.
Police and troops maintained a security cordon around the site located a stone's throw from the country's main military academy, denying access to media and others.
The Al Qaida leader was claimed to have lived in the house undetected for several years with his three wives and nine children, including his grandchildren.
A commission set up by Pakistan has been investigating how Bin Laden managed to evade detection and also the circumstances of the unilateral covert helicopter raid the US special forces conducted on May 2 last year without informing Islamabad.
Since the raid the compound had been under tight security.
No reason was officially given for razing the building, but the demolition was apparently meant to pre-empt the possibility of the Bin Laden hideout being made a shrine by his sympathisers or becoming a tourist attraction.
The Americans had buried him at sea due to a similar motive.
The demolition, which began late Saturday, continued overnight and bulldozers were busy as dawn broke out in Abbottabad's suburban Bilal Town neighbourhood. Witnesses said troops blocked access to the compound, brought in heavy machinery and barred journalists from taking pictures or coming close to the site.
Smashed structure
Nonetheless an AFP reporter saw empty rooms and cupboards and a chair inside the house.
The reporter said more than half of the compound's buildings had been demolished and four bulldozers were ‘smashing' the brick and concrete structures. Around 500 police were deployed, some of them manning an outer cordon while soldiers were positioned at the inner perimeter.
"The demolition work by security forces, including troops, continued overnight," a police official told AFP.
The compound has been under the security forces' control since Bin Laden was killed by the US in a covert helicopter operation.
The Americans buried him at sea, determined no grave should become a memorial to mastermind of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, but his home became an object of fascination.
The compound attracted hundreds of visitors daily soon after Bin Laden's killing and at the time officials feared his final hiding place could become a shrine or a tourist spot unless the military destroyed it.
No official comment
But there has been no official comment on why the demolition is being carried out. Residents said they heard the noise of machines and thud of debris throughout the night, and some perched on surrounding rooftops to watch the process. "We spent the entire night standing in the cold," a policeman told AFP as his colleagues lit a fire to warm themselves.
Residents said a school should be built on the site as there was none in the neighbourhood, while a security official said it would be a "good idea to grow vegetables here".
"It will take some time before the government takes any decision about the future use of the land on which the compound stood," the official said on condition of anonymity.
With inputs From AFP
