GWADAR: Three suspects allegedly involved in last month’s suicide attack in Gwadar were arrested in an intelligence-based operation conducted by the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) along with another law enforcement agency in Turbat town of Kech district.

A spokesperson for the CTD said on Saturday that security personnel raided a house in the Turbat Bazaar area and arrested a man identified as Shoaib. On information provided by Shoaib, the personnel raided another place in the town and took two more men into custody. From this place the personnel also seized some weapons, including explosive material and hand grenades, he added.

The spokesperson said all the three arrested men belonged to the banned Baloch Liberation Army (BLA).

He said the arrested men facilitated the suicide attack in Gwadar, claiming that they were planning more attacks against personnel of security agencies and the general public.

During the interrogation, the three men admitted that they were members of a facilitation network for the terrorists who carried out the Gwadar suicide attack.

Four children were killed in the Gwadar suicide attack which targeted a vehicle carrying some Chinese nationals. A suicide bomber blew himself up near the vehicle.

The children died in the attack were playing on the road. A Chinese national and the driver of the vehicle were injured in the attack.

The spokesperson said that one of the arrested men, Arif, told interrogators that his brother, Ahmed, transported the suicide bomber from Ramin area of Iran to Gwadar. He said he received the suicide bomber on his arrival in Gwadar on the night between August 10 and 11 and provided a place to him near Customs Warehouse.

Arif disclosed that Rasool Bux, a resident of Sheeran Chabahar area of Iran, was the mastermind of the attack. He disclosed that Rasool Bux had also used his late father for transporting the terrorists who had carried out the attack on PC Hotel Gwadar in 2019.

The spokesperson said more raids were being planned to arrest other members of the network.

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2021