PESHAWAR: Investigators suspect that Friday’s blast in Peshawar could have “originated from Afghan and Indian intelligence collaboration in Kabul”. DIG (Operations) Malik Saad told Daily Times that police were looking for clues to determine whether the man who executed the attack was a local or an Afghan. Injured gypsy women in Lady Reading Hospital told investigators they had seen the man for the first time in the area, but they could not identify whether he was a local or an Afghan. A counter-intelligence official said the blast was linked to a “wider regional conflict” suggesting that the mastermind was from “across the (western) border”. “These explosions are taking place to destabilise Pakistan,” he said. “An improvised explosive device was detonated in a pushcart, and investigators are gathering evidence to get to the attackers,” said Saad before a meeting that was presided over by IG Riffat Pasha. Police sources said that at the meeting,
“all security agencies had pointed their fingers across the border”. The sources said that police were finding it hard to make headway into the investigation or dig up evidence to substantiate their suspicion. “There has been no breakthrough so far.” Meanwhile, Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani also presided over a meeting to review the security situation following a series of blasts in Peshawar. “We will identify them, and will not spare them,” Durrani told the meeting. Police investigators are also looking at a possible link with the North Waziristan peace deal, as all five explosions in Peshawar took place after the accord was signed on September 5.