KARACHI, Nov 17: Three activists of a suspected insurgent group of Balochistan, arrested on Tuesday for the deadly car bomb attack in front of the PIDC House, were remanded in police custody on Thursday.

The suspects were brought before the administrative judge of the anti-terrorism courts, Arif Hussain Khilji, for obtaining their physical remand for investigation. The court remanded the suspects in custody till Nov 24.

The police believed the target of the car bombing was the offices of the Pakistan Petroleum Limited in the PIDC House.

“We have arrested the mastermind of the deadly attack who has been identified as Aziz Baloch besides his two accomplices — Mengal Khan and Abdul Jabbar Khan. Aziz and Mengal are brothers,” DIG for Investigation Manzoor Mughal told Dawn on Thursday.

Police obtained the registration number of the car, in which the suspects had fled, from the blurred images of the footage recorded by a surveillance camera. Aziz had parked the explosive-laden car and later he got into another car (AJE-056), which went towards Sultanabad over the bridge.

Mr Mughal said: “We intercepted the car AJE-056 near Gulshan Chowrangi and found three suspects, Aziz, Mengal and Jabbar. After a search of the car, police found three kilograms of explosives, two grenades, one Kalashnikov rifle, two TT pistols, and ammunition.”

He said Aziz had confessed to having perpetrated the bomb blast using the car to terrorise PPL officials and stated that they belonged to the Balochistan Liberation Army.

An FIR (582/05) under section 13-D of arms ordinance and under sections 4/5 of the Explosive Act was registered at the Gulshan-i-Iqbal police station against the suspects.

The sources said that five suspects were picked up in different areas of the metropolis and of them three had been shown as arrested. Those picked up included a police official, Osman, working with the Anti-Car Lifting Cell. The sources said raids were being conducted in different areas, including the parts of interior of the province, and disclosure of more arrests might be made in a couple of days.

A five-kilogram explosive-laden car with a timer device blew up in front of the PIDC House at around 8:40am on Tuesday killing three people and wounding 21 others, including two South African women.