KARACHI, Oct 26: The Sindh police on Friday released two photographs of last week’s bomb blast suspects stating firmly that both attacks on Benazir Bhutto’s welcome convoy were suicide attacks, an opinion not shared by the bomb disposal unit which has concluded that only one suicide attack took place.

A senior official said the report submitted by the bomb disposal squad was ‘self-contradictory’ and could not change the investigators’ stance who are certain that two suicide attacks were made on Ms Bhutto’s life.

“There are different experts offering different opinions, but as for the bomb disposal report, it can’t be accepted against the investigations carried out so far,” Capital City Police Officer Azhar Ali Farooqi told Dawn.

“The report is not likely to change the course of our investigations. Depending on the investigations, we have released the two photographs of the suspects in the two suicide attacks.”

Earlier, the police had released a photograph of the suspect believed to be involved in the midnight carnage, which killed more than 140 people and injured over 400.

The bomb disposal unit of the Karachi police on Wednesday concluded that the second attack on former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was a suicide bombing.

The conclusion is contained in a report submitted by the bomb disposal unit to Additional Inspector-General (Special Branch) Babar Khattak. The report describes the first bomb as an IED (improvised explosive device).

The report says that around 12kg of plastic explosive and RDX was used in the second bombing with hundreds of pellets, which caused many instant deaths. Referring to the first blast, the report says that around 200gm of dynamite was used in the IED.

However, it doesn’t seem to convince the investigators, who insist that the blasts were two suicide attacks.

The CCPO also ruled out claims made by the Pakistan People’s Party that the local police were not capable of investigating such incidents and foreign assistance in investigations would be required.

“We investigated some eight cases of suicide bombings before the last one,” he added. “All of those were solved and culprits brought to the court of law and the same result we expect in this case.”

Since no arrest has been made in the last week’s bombings, the police chief maintained that the investigators had found some serious leads and it was accelerating the process.

“It’s not as simple a case as that of a bicycle theft,” he added. “This is very complex and sensitive in nature, which may take time to resolve.”