QUETTA, Sept 14: Inspector-General of Balochistan Police Tariq Masood Khosa has said that a gang involved in terrorism, target killing and subversive activities in the province has been identified and its members will soon be arrested.

Addressing a press conference here on Friday, he said efforts were being made to arrest them.

“We have netted two important activists of the banned Baloch Liberation Army,” he said adding that with the arrest of a number of wanted terrorists, incidents of sectarian killings had stopped in the province.

Mr Khosa said members of the gang, who were also leading the BLA, were involved in attacking Chinese engineers in Hub, killing army personnel in Quetta in June and assassination of Raziq Bugti, media adviser to the chief minister.

Referring to the sectarian killings and attacks, the IGP said that CID had arrested one of the most wanted terrorists Shoaib, who had a head money of Rs one million. He said that two important men of the BLA and 15 other activists had also been arrested.

“With successful raids and efforts of police and other law-enforcement agencies, the incidents of the rocket-firing had been reduced in Quetta and other areas of the province,” he said.

He said that after deployment of 200 police personnel belonging to the tribes in Bolan, attacks on power pylons had stopped.

The IGP claimed that BLA’s local cells operating in Balochistan were getting directives from abroad as their masterminds were sitting in Afghanistan.

“These masterminds have been identified and their names have been given to Interpol for getting their red warrants issued,” Mr. Khosa said.

Answering another question, he said that kidnapped trader Anand Lal of the Kharan district had been rescued without paying any ransom and Iranian outlaw Karimuk had been killed during the operation.

The IGP said that the Balochistan Anti-Terrorist Force (ATF) conducted an operation in Mand area of Turbat near the border with Iran and freed 21 Iranians kidnapped from Chabhar area of the Iranian province of Sistan Balochistan.

The IGP said that joint checkposts were established in cooperation with Frontier Corps in various areas of Quetta to check terrorist activities. He said that the province had been divided into six regions to keep law and order under control.

About the missing people, he said that the Supreme Court had given a list of 66 persons and five people had been traced.

He denied arrest of political workers and said “No political activist has been arrested so far in Balochistan.”

He said that all 30 districts of the province had been converted from B areas into A and Levies force had been merged into police.