January 17, 2008	Thursday	Muharram 07, 1429

KARACHI, Jan 16: Still clueless in terms of investigations into last year’s Oct 18 Karsaz bombings, senior police officials in the city have professed their lack of knowledge about the federal interior ministry’s recent claims about the arrest of terrorists responsible for the carnage.

Senior officers of the city police and sources close to the investigation team told Dawn that although Interior Minister Lt-Gen (retd) Hamid Nawaz had claimed that the government had arrested the terrorists believed to have been involved in the Oct 18 bombings, they had so far not received any such news from Islamabad.

“According to the proper procedure for investigation, information must be shared between investigators and security agencies looking after the same cases if any progress is to be made,” said a senior police official on the condition of anonymity. “In the case of the Oct 18 bombings, however, we learnt through the media that the government had arrested some suspects. We expect to be informed of such developments before they are made public but this was not the case,” he complained, adding that senior officials in the Sindh police could now approach the federal authorities for details regarding the minister’s statements to the media. “Some leads are likely to be shared with the officers originally assigned to the investigation,” he told Dawn.

Interior Minister claimed arrests

Talking to the media recently, the Interior Minister had claimed that the government had arrested a number of terrorists believed to have been involved in the Oct 18 attacks on the homecoming procession of the Pakistan People’s Party’s now deceased chairperson, Benazir Bhutto.

While he did not comment on any links the detained persons may have had with those who assassinated Ms Bhutto on Dec 27, the minister did say that the men had been arrested from Mianwali and Sargodha , and over 60 kilos of explosive material had been seized from them.

The Interior Minister’s revelations were news for citizens as well as for the police investigators probing the Oct 18 bombings.

“As far as our investigations are concerned, there has been no significant development so far,” said another official who is one of the five-member team constituted by police authorities the day after the bombings.

The official said that the investigation team had been meeting regularly and pursuing the task it had been assigned. He rejected the notion that investigations had been put on the backburner after Ms Bhutto’s assassination on Dec 27.

Headed by DIG CID Saud Ahmed Mirza, the team investigating the Oct 18 blasts includes SP (Investigation, East) Dr Amir Shaikh, SP (Investigation, South) Niaz Ahmed Khosa, SP (Anti-Violent Crime Unit) Farooq Awan and CID SP Raja Umar Khattab.

Later, the Sindh government also set up an inquiry tribunal, headed by a retired judge of the Sindh High Court, to investigate the incident. The tribunal has been questioning witnesses including police officials and the PPP leadership, and also appears unaware of the progress disclosed by the federal interior minister.

“We learned about the arrests through the media and asked the investigation officer for details,” said special prosecutor Arshad Lodhi. “But he didn’t come up with details and we are not in a position to comment on such progress as we don’t know the details.”

“If the authorities are not handing over the custody of the suspects arrested by them, they should at least intimate us about such moves,” added Mr Lodhi.