Bin Laden Daughter: Osama Captured Alive Then Shot Dead
“Not a single bullet was fired from the compound at the US forces and their choppers. Their chopper developed some technical fault and crashed and the wreckage was left on the spot,” a well-informed official explained.
Meanwhile, Pakistani security forces maintained a cordon around the compound and its surrounding areas and did not allow the media access to the area until the remaining wreckage of the US military chopper was removed. Some media were given access to the spot but no one was allowed to enter the compound.
The Pakistan Army has sealed two main entrances of the house and deployed military and police for its protection.
A sizeable number of national and international journalists have arrived in Abbottabad to cover the extraordinary story. Before opening the area to the media, Pakistani soldiers shifted two buffaloes, a cow and around 150 hens from the compound to an unknown location.
Security officials said they did not recover any arms and explosives during their detailed search of the compound on Monday and Tuesday. Also, they said, it was a simple house comprising 13 rooms, six on the ground floor and the remaining on the first and second floors.
“There was no bunker or tunnel inside the house and that’s why I don’t understand why the world’s most wanted man would have decided to live here,” a senior official said.
He said two brothers, Arshad Khan and Tariq Khan, owned the house. Both belonged to Tangi area in Charsadda district. Officials said they had no information about the two brothers and their business.
According to a neighbor, the dwellers of the compound never mixed with anyone.
“It was a very reserved family and never attended any wedding or funeral ceremony in the area,” said Qari Mastana Khan of Bilal Town. “But they were kindhearted and would provide clean drinking water and food to poor neighbors. During the holy month of Ramadan, they invited us for Iftar dinner at their house and served us delicious food. Arshad Khan had three kids and his brother Tariq four,” Khan added.
Another interesting aspect, which the residents shared about the house and its inmates, was the strict behavior of the family, who in the last six years, had never allowed women of the neighborhood to enter their house or permitted their own ladies to visit neighbors. Also, children playing in the streets and nearby fields were never allowed into the compound, not even when their balls inadvertently went across.
“Usually, when their ball falls past the wall of a house, the children just go there and pick it up but they were never allowed into this particular house. Whenever their ball fell there and the children went to retrieve it, whoever opened the door gave them money to buy a new ball instead of allowing them to enter and search for their ball,” said an elder of the area, Mohammad Fayaz.
He said all these details made him suspicious but were not enough to make him believe the world’s most wanted man was hiding in his neighborhood.
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