KARACHI, May 16: Police are conducting raids to arrest a prayer leader of a Baghdadi mosque for being an associate of the alleged perpetrator of the Hyderi mosque bomb blast.

The police have included 11 people in the investigation - four fellow recruits of Mohammad Akbar Niazi, the alleged suicide bomber and a trainee policeman, his father and three brothers.

The police have also questioned the father and two brothers of the absconding prayer leader, Sher Khan, sources told Dawn on Sunday. Fourteen people were killed and 96 other injured in a powerful blast on May 7, at the Hyderi mosque on the premises of Sindh Madressahtul Islam.

The death toll rose to 19 as five of the victims died later owing to serious burns and injuries, whereas some of the injured people were still getting treatment at the different hospitals in the city.

One of the investigators said that Akbar Niazi's father, and three brothers told the police, during investigation, that he used to visit Quba mosque at Niazi Chowk, Daryabad, Baghdadi, near his residence. They alleged that the prayer leader of Quba mosque had instigated him to carry out the suicide blast.

"We went to the mosque to question the prayer leader, but found that he was missing from the day of the blast," he added. The police were now interrogating his father and two brothers to extract some information. "We are trying to get information as much as possible about Sher Khan," an investigator added.

The investigators, engaged in the probe, have reached consensus that the suicide bomber was the 'trainee policeman', Akbar Niazi. The sources said that he had joined police in 2002 and was sent for training in Sept 2003 to Saeedabad police training centre.

A senior investigator, seeking anonymity, said: "We have got his photograph from the papers he had provided for legal proceedings during his appointment in the police department.

We took that photograph to the witnesses, who were injured in the explosion and getting treatment at a private hospital. They had earlier indicated the presence of a suspicious man in police uniform."

He said: "We have shown the photograph to the witnesses and they identified him as the policeman who was present in the mosque before the blast. The witnesses said that the policeman had argued when he was asked to go to the adjoining Sunni mosque for he was not carrying 'Khak-i-Shifa'. But, he had asked them if he, being Sunni, could not offer prayer in a Shia mosque on which they kept quiet."

Akbar Niazi got married two years back and was father of a son, Hamza. His wife told the police she was convinced from the day first of her marriage that he had sectarian inclination.

The sources claimed that he was affiliated to the banned religious group - Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan - and had participated in Afghanistan jihad. The police were also examining the record of Baghdadi police station from where he was issued a character certificate. The other suspects had told the interrogators that they had joined the police force to leak out secret information to their group.

An inquiry into the character examination of all recruits, who had been getting training at Saeedabad and Razzakabad training centres, had been launched, the sources said.