Investigators probing the devastating suicide bombing attack on a Shia mosque in Karachi on May 7 have confirmed the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni Deobandi terrorist group, was âdirectly involved in the attack.â The literature and many clues found from the house of the absconding pesh imam of a Lyari mosque show the attack, which killed 20 people and injured more than 100, âwas masterminded by the Lashkar and the man in front was Murtaza, who was pesh imam of the mosque,â a senior investigator told Daily Times.
| Planned by the holy man. Wotta surprise. |
The records of Baghdadi police station relating to the bomber, Akbar Niazi, have been seized and the pesh imam of the mosque of Lyariâs Niazi Chowk area is also in custody. The pesh imam was âvery friendly with Akbar,â he added. Police are reported to have found jihadi literature, including âA Guide for Jihadis,â and many other important clues from the house of the pesh imam, who is 24, the same age as Niazi. Sources in the police said their department had also arrested four accomplices of the pesh imam and were interrogating them for their possible connection with terrorist outfits. âThe literature we have found from the pesh imamâs house confirms that Lashkar-e-Jhangvi was directly involved in the incident,â an investigator said. âBut Niaziâs direct involvement with the group has not yet been established, except that they could have motivated him recently,â he added. âWe are questioning his family members about the friends who used to visit him, or whom he visited. We are also questioning policemen who were close to him,â the investigator said.
| Doesn't make much difference if he was a member of contract labor, does it? |
The police also conducted raids on a number of madrassas in Karachi and took an unspecified number of people from there for questioning. Niazi, himself a resident of Lyari Town, fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan until the late 1990s and then joined the police a couple of years ago. He belonged to a religious family from Punjabâs Mianwali district and was believed to have had âdangerous jihadisâ for his close friends, investigators grilling his father Kashmir Khan, two brothers and two of his friends, told Daily Times. âHe was a dangerous man while he was being recruited in the police force, but he managed to secure a positive character certificate from the Baghdadi police station,â a senior police official said.
His father told investigators that Niazi left the house a day before the attack on the mosque, wearing police uniform, and did not return. The dead bomber was identified from the buckle of his police belt, part of which was found in the mosque, according to the investigator. However, investigations show Niazi had not been involved in any criminal acts in the past. |