KARACHI, 17 April 2006 — Pakistani police detained at least a dozen suspected militants in connection with a suicide bombing at a religious congregation last week that killed 57 people, a senior police official said yesterday.
No group has claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack in Karachi, where a suicide bomber targeted the gathering of more than 15,000 people celebrating the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) at a city park.
“We are questioning them and I am hopeful that we are close to a breakthrough,” Jahangir Mirza, chief of police in southern Sindh province, told a news conference.
“We have extended our investigation to other provinces after getting some leads from the detained people,” he said.
He declined to give details of those detained or any affiliations with militant groups they might have.
“We are investigating jihadists because they were involved in such attacks in the past, but we are also looking into other possibilities,” Mirza said, referring to militants. The attack was the worst ever in Karachi, Pakistan’s commercial capital. Among the dead were several leaders of the Jamaat-e-Ahle Sunnat group, which draws its support from Pakistan’s dominant Barelvi sect.
Mirza said investigators still had to narrow a list of suspects that included militants from sectarian, separatist and ethnic groups, as well as Al-Qaeda-linked militants.
Militants, angered by President Pervez Musharraf’s support for the US-led war on terrorism, have used suicide bombers in attempts to kill both the president and his prime minister.
Meanwhile, the Sindh government has made it mandatory for organizers to seek Home Department’s permission for holding any religious gathering in the province.
Briefing newsmen after the Sindh Cabinet meeting that took the decision, provincial government spokesman Salahuddin Haider said it had been made mandatory for organizers to take permission for any gathering whether to be held in mosque or any other public place.
The Cabinet also decided that a body would be constituted that would have district government representatives, police officers and members of the law-enforcement agencies as members. The panel would decide on granting permission for such meetings.
In another development, some members of the National Assembly from the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal have objected to the inclusion of FBI personnel in the Nishtar Park blast probe team.
“Who has allowed the FBI to conduct the investigation?” said a statement issued by MNAs Mohammad Hussain Mehanti, Abdul Sattar Afghani and Laeeq Khan.
The three-day strike after the Karachi blast caused a loss of Rs15 billion, according to experts. To make up for the losses, industries will remain open on four Sundays. Sunday is a holiday in Pakistan.
