QUETTA, July 16: Investigators have identified two of the three terrorists killed in their attack on an imambargah of Quetta on July 4,2003, Balochistan IGP Dr Shoib Suddle told a press conference here on Wednesday .
“We have verified the identities of two terrorists through credible forensic evidence,” he said, but did not disclose their names or the organizations they belonged to.
“In the interest of investigation, particulars of the identified terrorists are being withheld for the time being,” Dr Suddle said and assured newsmen that all information would be released to the media shortly.
However, some reports suggested that the two persons were identified as Khan Mohammad and Noor Ahmed of Mastung district.
Dr Suddle said the three investigating teams constituted for the task succeeded in identifying two terrorists after hectic efforts. However, the third one could not be identified, he added.
Balochistan Chief Secretary Ashraf Nasar on the occasion said that after identification of the two terrorists, police and other law enforcing agencies found out a way for further investigation. The government was making all possible efforts to save the city from such incidents in future, he added.
Replying to a question, Dr Suddle said: “Now we are investigating as to who used them for this tragic incident.”
Answering another question, he said that so far over 50 suspects were taken into custody by the law enforcing agencies. Some of them had helped the investigating teams in identifying the dead terrorists, he added.
He regretted that despite repeated appeals, the people were not providing information about the incident and the group involved in it.
“After publishing the photographs of the terrorists, the response of the people was not according to our expectations,” Dr Suddle said.
AFP adds: A senior investigator said: “We have identified two of the three terrorists as Noor Ahmed and Mohammad Khan, both from Mastung.”
Noor Ahmed was affiliated with the al Badr, a group fighting Indian forces in the occupied Kashmir, the investigator said on condition of anonymity. But Khan’s affiliation had not yet been established, he added.
“We are probing whether the two men had any link with the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ),” the investigator said.
dpa adds: The banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi has claimed responsibility for the July 4 attack on the imambargah, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported on Wednesday.
According to BBC, the claim was made in a letter and a video tape sent to its correspondent in Quetta.
Three men on the tape admit that they belong to the group of extremist Sunnis. They resembled the suicide bombers in photographs released by police after the attack, BBC’s Urdu-language broadcast said.
It said only the youngest among them spoke on the tape, railing against the Shias for 10 minutes.
BBC said the letter was written after the July 4 attack in what was believed to be a message to President Pervez Musharraf, the United States and Iran.
More than 50 people were killed and 65 were injured in the attack on the imambargah on July 4,2003.