Abid Farooq, a bomb disposal squad official in Karachi, Pakistan, says that he has defused around 500 large bombs in his 20-year career.
Abid Farooq is the inspector in charge of Bomb Disposal Squad Karachi West Region.
Inspector Abid Farooq joined the police in 1992 as a constable in Karachi District Central and moved to Special Branch in 1995, while in 1996 he was sent to Lahore for training.
After receiving training in Civil Defense for a month and a half in Lahore, when he returned, he was transferred to the bomb disposal squad. In 1999, he became an Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) in the Bomb Disposal Squad.
Speaking to Independent Urdu, Inspector Abid Farooq said that ‘in a period of almost 20 years since 2004, I have defused more than 500 bombs, including 50 to 300 kg bombs, while more than 1000 hand grenades and other Defuse small bombs.’
“The heaviest bomb to be defused in my career in large bombs was found in a taxi near Sohrab Goth, Asif Manzil in 2008, weighing 300 kg,” he says.
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He further said that two large iron trunks were kept in the trunk of the taxi. They had 95 kg of ammunition in each trunk and the inside of the cab was also full of ammunition.
‘If the bomb in the taxi exploded, it would have been a huge disaster. It was very difficult to defuse the bomb, but I also defused that difficult and 300 kg bomb.’
Between 2013 and 2015, Karachi witnessed a tremendous increase in the incidence of extremism. According to Abid Farooq, “I used to reach home after disarming a bomb, when I was informed that a bomb was kept in another place.”
Abid Farooq said that the family members said to leave the job. I used to lie to my family to defuse the bomb. When the family saw on the media that I was defusing the bomb, they were very worried.’
