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| India-Pakistan |
| More than 50 held over Lahore suicide attacks |
| 2008-03-13 |
| Police on Wednesday arrested more than 50 suspects in province-wide raids over Tuesday’s suicide attacks in Lahore, and were investigating whether Al Qaeda was behind the attacks. Police sources said the suspects, most of them from banned militant organisations, were held from Lahore, Faisalabad, Okara, Dera Ghazi Khan and Bahawalpur. A senior police official said law-enforcement agencies had recovered the chassis (number 3L3849728) of the vehicle used in the attack on the FIA regional headquarters. The vehicle was registered by one Chaudhry Imtiaz Kamboh from Faialabad. Three suspects that he identified were held in raids in Kot Lakhpat and Nishtar Colony. A suspect identified as Hafiz from Bahawalpur had been using the vehicle. He led the police to more suspects, the official said. Law-enforcement agencies held Bund Road resident Qari Rehmatullah Taunsvi and four “guests from Dera Ghazi Khan” from his house, Rehmatullah’s wife told a private television channel. Police also held a Sipah-e-Sahaba office-bearer and his friend Maulana Muneer Ahmed from Jahania. Senior police and government officials attended a special funeral ceremony for 12 employees of the Federal Investigation Agency who died in the attack on the FIA regional headquarters. Remains: Deputy Inspector General (Investigations) Tasadaq Hussain said police had collected the remains of the two attackers. Part of the head and a leg of the FIA building attacker were found from the roof of a nearby building, he said. He said the attacks had targeted the US-trained Special Investigations Group (SIG) that had been working on the third floor of the building. Plastic explosive C4 was used in the attacks, he added. FIA DG Tariq Pervez said the Model Town attack was aimed at the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) that worked under the Home Department and not the FIA. The SIG in the FIA building was a separate organisation that collected evidence from crime scenes and helped the police in forensic analyses. He said it was not investigating any cases of terrorism or interrogating any suspects. Record: Pervez said the FIA record was safe because most of it was on the fifth and sixth floors and backed up in computers in Islamabad. |
| Posted by:Fred |