October 31, 2007	Wednesday	Shawwal 18, 1428

RAWALPINDI, Oct 30: The condition of five out of the eleven injured policemen, who survived the Tuesday’s suicide bomb attack here, has been described by the doctors as critical.

Two assistant sub-inspectors and a constable, three civilians and a suicide bomber were killed, while 31 others, including eleven policemen, were injured in the deadly attack on a police post less than a kilometre from the Army House.

ASI Mohammad Akram was the first to intercept the attacker, who approached the police post on foot and later detonated his explosives, killing the three police personnel.

The other two victims were ASI Naeem Zaidi and constable Asim.

Chief of Rawalpindi Police DIG Saud Aziz told reporters on the scene of the blast that the suicide bomber wanted to get past the police cordon, but he was intercepted by the personnel present there.”We had been on high alert for the last many days”, the CPO said. He added that the head of the bomber was found hanging on a tree, while his two legs and fingers had also been recovered from the site. No one has claimed responsibility of the blast so far.

The critically injured policemen identified as constable Atta, Asad Javed, Kamran Sajjad Qamar and Mohammad Qazzafi, are being treated at the Combined Military Hospital (CMH), while the others suffering from minor injuries are being treated at the District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital.

Funeral prayers of the martyred policemen were offered in the Police Lines Rawalpindi attended by a large number of police personnel, their relatives and friends.

Moving scenes were witnessed at the funeral prayers and also at the DHQ Hospital, where relatives and friends of the victims were looking for their loved ones.

All the police personnel donated their one-day’s salary for the martyred policemen. The Punjab chief minister had already announced Rs200,000 compensation for the martyred officials.

As part of the investigation, a team of forensic experts from the Special Investigation Group of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) visited the blast scene and collected some pieces of evidence.

However, the entire site had already been cleaned and washed by the cantonment fire engines, which the experts said, caused problems in collecting and preserving the evidence.

Meanwhile, FIR of the incident was registered under Explosives and Anti-Terrorist Act with the Civil Lines Police on Tuesday night.

A high-level meeting was also chaired by the CPO to review the security strategy in Rawalpindi, which had already been on high alert for the last few days.