ISLAMABAD, July 21: Four leading members of an outlawed terror group accused of bombing a US consulate and several other attacks have been arrested in Jhang, police said here on Sunday.

The four hardcore militants were caught in a raid overnight in Jhang, a known base of underground Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ) activists, Jhang police chief Tariq Masood Yasin, told AFP by telephone.

“The LJ suspects were nabbed during a raid at their hideout and now they are under interrogation,” he said.

“They said that they were planning to assassinate police officers who had been involved in a crackdown against the LJ.”

Those arrested were identified by the police as Nadeem Jhangvi, Sajjad Ahmed, Mohammad Irshad and Shehzad Ahmed.

Jhangvi’s brother, Saleem Fauji, was killed in an encounter with the police in the late 1990s after he had attacked an armoured vehicle in Jhang, killing four policemen.

“Jhangvi was given the task of regrouping the shattered organization and these arrests are a serious set back (to the LJ). They were trying to mobilize support in Jhang,” a police intelligence source said.

The police said the suspects had been involved in a spate of robberies and extortion of money from the locals to help re-organize the outfit, which had been seriously affected by a sustained police crackdown.—AFP