KARACHI, May 28: While the Law-enforcement agencies have unearthed a plot to carry out terrorist attack using explosive-packed vehicles targeting some foreign interests in the city, police have booked five of their colleagues, posted near the PACC, on charge of negligence.

Two bombs went off with an interval of about 30 minutes outside the PACC, located near the residence of the US consul general, on the Fatima Jinnah Road on Wednesday.

The five policemen, on duty at a check post near the PACC, have been arrested and an FIR (No.53/2004) has been registered at the Artillery Maidan police station. They have been identified as SI Mohammad Kabul, ASI Shams Qamar, head-constable Muzaffar, and constables Bashir Ahmed and Riaz Ahmed.

A senior police official said: "It was utmost negligence on the part of the five policemen that the culprits struck at the scene unchecked and also managed to leave without facing any problem after planting explosive devices in two cars."

Meanwhile, law-enforcement agencies have received a 'credible' intelligence report about a plot to attack some foreign interests. The police and other agencies on Friday launched a hectic search for a former Pesh Imam of Bilal mosque, Model Colony, Malir, suspected of being at the centre of the plot.

The intelligence provided to the police identified the suspect as Qari Mohammad Zafar who, according to the information, was working under his Arab associate, Khalid Bin Attash of the Al Qaeda network, well-placed sources told Dawn on Friday.

The Qari had allegedly prepared two explosives-packed vehicles which were to be driven to ram into an unspecified foreign mission or interest in the city, the intelligence report suggested.

According to the report, the Qari is being assisted by a Yamani national who is expert in electronics. As the investigations into the bombing near PACC continued, police were examining the video-tapes acquired from the devices installed at the PACC and the next door house, the official residence of the State Bank governor.

The tapes indicates that the booby-trap car, which exploded after the first one, bearing fake official registration number had entered the Fatima Jinnah Road either from the Metropole Hotel side or the side-lane next to the India House, investigators told Dawn.

The quality of the tapes appeared poor and the investigators were trying to improve the images so as to get a clear picture. Closed-circuit television cameras in the high-security area filmed two suspects on a motorcycle arriving at the scene of the blasts and placing a device on top of a car which later exploded, AFP adds.

A second, larger explosion from another car half-an-hour later, killed a policeman and injured 32 other people, mostly journalists and police. "We have got some important clues showing the two suspects riding a motorcycle and sticking something on one of the two cars which later exploded," a senior investigator, who did not want to be named, told AFP.

Police are checking the film to see if the two are the same men who stole the car, used for the more powerful bomb, just two hours before the attack. "We will show the film to the car owner to know whether they were the same car-snatchers," the investigator said.

Police suspect involvement of the banned Harkatul Mujahideen Al-Alami, whose supporters unsuccessfully tried to blow up President Musharraf's motorcade in Karachi in April 2002 and detonated a car bomb outside the US consulate two months later, killing 12 people.

Investigators believe the attack was in retaliation to the arrests of seven activists of the group a few days before the attack. Four Harkat activists were convicted last year for the April 2002 plot to assassinate President Musharraf.