CCTV footage confirms Sehwan bomber bypassed security check

Risingbd Desk: Sindh police on Sunday released a video allegedly showing the Sehwan attacker bypassing a security check at the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine last week.

The suicide attack targeting the shrine on Thursday killed at least 88 people and injured hundreds others. It is one among a deadly series of attacks carried out by militants in recent weeks.

Inspector General Police Sindh A.D. Khawaja while addressing a press conference said the man shown in the CCTV footage is "99 per cent" the suicide bomber. He described the man as an Afghan national, saying that the 'attacker' saw the police officer at the gate and decided to go the other way.

The attacker is suspected of involvement in the Shikarpur and Jacobabad blasts, the IGP said, adding that the involvement of a man named Hafeez Brohi in the Sehwan attack could not be ruled out, as he had a terrorist network in Sindh.

The IGP said that police have arrested one man in connection to the Sehwan carnage in Johi, a town in Sindh's Dadu district. The suspected facilitator has been shifted to an undisclosed location for further investigation, he added.

The Sindh government will have the case investigated through Sindh police’s Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), as was done in suicide bombings in Jacobabad during Ashura and at Shikarpur’s shrine, and then again last year in Shikarpur on the second day of Eidul Azha.

Sehwan police had lodged a case on Friday against one suicide bomber and three facilitators involved in the Feb 16 suicide bombing at the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar. The accused remained unidentified.

The First Information Report for the case was lodged for crime no 16/2017 under Sections 302, 353, 324, 295, 120/B, 440, 149 of the Pakistan Penal Code, 3/4 of the Explosive Substance Act and 6/7 of the Anti Terrorism Act.

A police source confirmed that an unspecified number of suspects were detained during raids at different places in Sehwan.

The shrine has now been opened for the general public.

Agencies

risingbd/DHAKA/Feb 19, 2017/Amirul