QUETTA, March 8: Police have arrested from Killi Qambrani, a village in the suburbs of the city, five members of a gang involved in bomb explosions and rocket and hand grenade attacks.

Balochistan Inspector-General of Police Chaudhry Yaqoob told a news conference on Tuesday: "We have arrested five important members of a terrorist gang involved in subversive activities."

They had confessed to their involvement in dozens of bomb blasts and rocket and grenade attacks in Quetta, he claimed. He said the arrests were made when the Crime Investigation Department and the Anti-Terrorist Force raided some houses in Killi Qambrani.

They are: Mohammad Ali Qambrani, Faiz Ahmed Bungulzai, Mohammad Arif Zehri, Amir-ul-Mulk and Irshad Ahmed. Replying to a question, the IGP said police had succeeded in breaking the network of the gang, arresting around two dozen people. "It is not a very big network and soon other members of the gang would also be netted.

"Same is the case with the Balochistan Liberation Army. They are only a few and not sitting in every house of the province." It was the issue of some influential people who were exploiting the situation in their favour, he remarked.

He said voice should be raised for the rights of Balochistan and Baloch people but not by indulging in subversive activities. Chaudhry Yakoob claimed that the arrested accused told police investigators that they had obtained training to carry out bomb blasts, rocket and grenade attacks and handling other weapons in a Marri camp, some 40 miles from Sibi.

After getting training they were provided rockets and explosive material in Mastung, which were then shifted to the Marri camp in the city on donkeys through Chiltan mountains for conducting subversive activities in Quetta and other areas of the province, the IGP said.

He further said that the accused also told the investigators that they were being paid money on monthly basis by Nawabzada Hairbiyar Marri, the son of veteran Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri, through Mohammad Arif and Mohammad Aslam, who were also wanted by police in various terrorist activities.

He claimed that they also admitted about hurling hand grenades and launching rockets at police stations and checkpoints in Quetta. "Senior police officers are interrogating the accused in various cases of subversive activities," Chaudhry Yaqoob told a questioner.

He said five people, who were found involved in blowing up railway tracks and Wapda towers, had also been arrested from Sibi. "They also confessed their subversive activities."

With the arrest of around two dozen saboteurs, rocket and grenade attacks, bomb blasts, blowing of electric towers and railway lines had stopped in Quetta and other areas, the Balochistan IGP said.

Replying to a question about the identification of the alleged terrorists, who blew themselves up in a house at Ghilzai street during Muharram, he said they could not be identified, so far. However, a team of FIA experts had arrived in the city to do the job, he added.