RAWALPINDI: Police have traced the terrorist network which bombed the Chittian Hattian Imambargah and have arrested four suspects.

However, tracing out the man who planted the bomb and detonated it, killing six people and injuring 15, would be a major breakthrough for the police.

Read: Bomb blast at Rawalpindi imambargah kills 8, injures 16

Police sources said two of the suspects arrested were convicted of murdering PTV producer Aun Mohammad Rizvi in 1999 and were acquitted by the Supreme Court in October 2011. But the sources declined to disclose their names. One of them, residing in Banni, had disappeared with his family from his house two days before the Imambargah was bombed, the sources said.

Police investigators, the Counterterrorism Department (CTD) and intelligence agencies are now scouring for the suspects’ links to Hafiz Muhammad Nawaz facing death penalty for killing Aun Mohammad Rizvi.

Sources close to the investigation say the police had been “desperately looking” for the six accused tried in the 1999 murder of the television producer but acquitted of the charge in the end.

“Yes, we have been working on putting his name on the Exit Control List when the man disappeared from his Banni house,” Regional Police Officer Akhtar Umar Hayat Laleka said, suspecting his involvement in the Friday night bombing.

Also read: TTP Jamatul Ahrar claims attack on Rawalpindi imambargah

Police investigators are viewing CCTV images of a man seemingly planting explosive device in a drain pipe and then vanishing from the scene.

A senior police officer told Dawn that a remote controlled device planted inside a drain pipe caused the blast and the man who set it off must not have been far from the scene.  

CCTV images show a man in white clothes arriving at the site at 3am Friday with a stick in his right hand and a bag in the left, and then walking away as if he came for surveying the surroundings.

Some time later he returned and inserted the stick in the drain pipe, taking care that it does not slip down. While doing all that, he pulled his cap down as if to hide his face. He sat close to the pipe giving the impression he was urinating. Police have found a battery cell used to detonate explosive from afar.

A top-ranking police officer confided on condition of anonymity that the face of the suspected explosive planter is recognizable “and he seems to be from Bahawalpur or Abbottabad areas”.

His images have been sent to Nadra for identification and police believe he would be captured soon.

The explosive device exploded at 9:30pm on Friday during a power break that lasted just a couple of minutes. The investigators are ascertaining why the power supply was suspended for such a short span of time and why CCTV recording was not seen during that time.

Syed Ibn-e-Mohammad Rizvi, who lodged the FIR about the terrorist attack with the Waris Khan police, told Dawn that except the station house officer Raja Abdul Rasheed, none of the other senior police officer had contacted them since the terrorist attack happened on Friday.

Published in Dawn January 15th , 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play