ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said yesterday it has arrested seven Indians in connection with a bomb blast in Lahore on Wednesday. The bomb-rigged truck exploded in a heavily guarded neighborhood of the city, killing a woman and injuring four people.
Security sources said police arrested Satish Anand Shukla of Calcutta hours after the blast. A senior Lahore police officer said six Indians were arrested on information supplied by Shukla. He did not give further details, but other security sources said the arrests were carried out in Anarkali, Chungh and Bahawalpur. Cameras, maps locating vital installations in Lahore, pistols, explosives material and detonators were seized from the Indians, the sources said. The detainees are being interrogated at an undisclosed location to find out the “nerve center of their operation,” one source said.
The Lahore blast and arrests came almost a month after the Mumbai terrorist attacks of Nov. 26 that killed up to 179 people. India and the United States have held Pakistan-based terrorists for the attacks, based on the confession of the lone surviving attacker, Mohammed Ajmal Amir Qasab.
India has asked its neighbor to take steps to dismantle what it calls the terrorist infrastructure on its soil and said all options are open in the event of Pakistani inaction.
Yesterday, Pakistan warned India against launching any strike and vowed to respond to any attack. “India should refrain from any surgical strike,” Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told reporters in Multan. “It should not commit this mistake, but if it does, Pakistan will be compelled to respond.”
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani echoed the same sentiment and repeated Pakistan’s demand that India provide evidence to support its claim that the 10 gunmen involved in the Mumbai massacre were Pakistani. “Whenever we receive evidence, we will examine it and investigate it, and we will share it with our people,” Gilani told reporters.
India has given Pakistan a letter from Qasab, reportedly saying he and the nine others were Pakistani. He also asked to meet with Pakistani envoys, but newspapers in Pakistan reported yesterday that the government has rejected the request because it has no record of Qasab as a Pakistani citizen.
— With input from agencies
