KARACHI, Jan 2: A suspect said to be linked to the November 11 bombing of the CID offices in Civil Lines was picked up the following day from a Punjab district, it emerged on Sunday.

Investigators believed that a number of attackers, who had opened the barrier and gate of the complex after shooting down the Frontier Constabulary men to let an explosive-laden truck move in, had escaped.

At least 17 people were killed and scores of others wounded in the blast on the premises of CID offices on Beaumont Road on the night of Nov 11, 2010. The attack was carried out at 8.20pm, when only a few people were present in the office.

Well-placed sources, who declined to name the suspect, told Dawn that he was picked up by operatives of an intelligence agency in Rahimyar Khan district on Nov 12, when he was returning from Karachi. The suspect was associated with the proscribed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, the sources said.

“After the CID blast, the suspect left for Rahimyar Khan the following morning in a passenger bus and was detained in the district by some intelligence operatives.”

They said the Sindh police had been provided intelligence reports in advance that a suspect might travel to the province to supervise an attack on a law-enforcement establishment. The sources said the Punjab police had passed on the information, including a universal serial bus (USB) which contained the video clip of the CID Civil Lines building and some other sensitive installations, about two to three months before the attack was carried out. The video clip had been made with a pen camera, the sources added.

The USB was seized from the suspects who had been arrested by the Lahore police in connection with the attacks on the Ahmadis’ place of worship in May last year.

On May 28, 2010, attackers and suicide bombers stormed two mosques belonging to the minority Ahmadi sect in Lahore shortly after Friday prayers, killing around 80 people.

The Lahore police arrested six suspects linked to the attacks on the two mosques.

Following the arrests, Lahore police chief Mohammad Aslam Tareen told the media that the suspects belonged to the banned militant outfit, Harakat al-Jihad al-Islami, as did those who had carried out the attacks.

The Punjab police had passed on all relevant information extracted from the suspects including the contents of the USB to the Sindh police, the sources said.

Acting on the information, the Special Police Group personnel were posted outside the offices of the CID Civil Lines. However, when nothing happened, the CID took the information as a matter of routine and the SPG personnel were withdrawn after some time.

The sources said: “The SPG personnel were withdrawn just a few days before the blast.”

In the following days of the CID blast, a person called a CID officer from a public call office in Landhi and expressed the hope that the police must have got the message and warned of similar attacks in future, the sources said.

The CID offices were known for investigation of terrorism and other high-profile cases after the provincial police officer some time ago decided that the CID, which was originally tasked with intelligence gathering, would also be doing investigation and interrogation of suspects.

Even press conferences were organised in recent months at the offices of the CID which was basically mandated to gather intelligence.

According to some senior police officers, the CID should be allowed to do intelligence work only as was originally envisaged. “CID officers are not supposed to hold press conference, it is unthinkable in Punjab,” an officer said.