QUETTA, April 15: Police have arrested four members of a gang allegedly involved in bomb blasts at the Fatehpur shrine in Jhal Magsi district, which claimed 43 lives.

Balochistan police chief Chaudhry Mohammad Yaqoob said at a press conference on Friday that the accused belonged to the defunct Sipah-i-Sahaba and they had received training of terrorism in Afghanistan. He said the accused had remained associated with Jihadi organizations.

He said 43 people were killed and 18 injured when two bombs went off in the shrine during the Urs of Pir Syed Rekhil Shah on March 19.

“All the four accused have confessed, while recording their statements before a judicial magistrate, to planting bombs in the kitchen area of the shrine,” he said. He said the accused had informed the court that they went to Fatehpur one day before the incident and planted two bombs in ghee tins, which went off when people were collecting food during the Urs.

He said it was a sectarian attack and the assailants wanted to stop the holding of the Urs.

He the mastermind of the gang, Abdul Haleem, belonged to Jacobabad, and his accomplices were: Obaidullah of Shikarpur and Maulvi Abdul Qayyum and Aslam Mastoi of Usta Mohammad.

Chaudhry Yaqoob said Maulvi Qayyum and Abdul Haleem were arrested on March 20 in Usta Mohammad when the latter was slightly injured in an explosion in a mosque. He said police had seized explosive material and literature from them.

He said police were conducting raids to arrest four other members of the gang belonging to Sindh and Balochistan.

Replying to a question, he said groups involved in such attacks had chosen Nasirabad and Jaffarabad for their activities. The terrorists involved in suicide attacks of an imambargah and Ashura procession were also from those two districts, he said.

Responding to a question, he said the Balochistan police had resolved all the high-profile cases and arrested the terrorists involved in those.