KARACHI: Investigators have made some progress in the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine blast probe as a team of the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) assigned with the job has collected 46 parts of the suspected bomber’s body, which have been preserved for further examination to ascertain his identity, a top official said on Saturday.

CTD SSP Omer Shahid Hamid, who is leading one of the investigation teams, speaking at a press conference and later on speaking to Dawn, said that DNA samples of the suspected attacker had been taken for identification purpose.

However, he regretted that if there had been a nationwide DNA database, it would have helped them to ascertain the identity of the bomber more easily.

Mr Hamid said three separate teams were working on the case — one was led by another CTD SSP, Pervez Chandio, and another by the district police of Jamshoro and Dadu.

He disclosed that several persons had been taken into custody by the CTD and the district police for interrogation but so far no ‘hard and fast’ evidence had emerged during the investigation.

The CTD SSP said they had some leads and were working on them. Mr Hamid said that since 2010, suspected militant Hafeez Brohi, or Pandrani, had been found involved in all terror acts in upper Sindh and that the police suspected his network’s involvement in the deadly bomb blast in Sehwan. He said Brohi had remained associated with the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi.

“It did not mean that we are ruling out other options,” he added.

The CTD official said they were also questioning a detained suspect, Usman, who was arrested during a botched suicide bombing in Shikarpur recently.

Earlier, speaking at a press conference, Mr Hamid said the CTD team had arrested three suspected hitmen in Malir’s Jaffar-i-Tayyar Society.

“The held hitmen [have been] identified as Anwar Husain, Asif Mumtaz and Khurram Shaharyar” belonging to the “Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan,” claimed the CTD official.

Published in Dawn, February 26th, 2017