MANSEHRA, July 23: Fourteen suspects arrested in connection with the attack on European tourists near Ashoka relics here on 13th, have been sent to judicial lock-up in the district jail Abbottabad for two weeks.
The accused had been handed over to a joint interrogation team (JIT) which shifted them to Peshawar for questioning on 17th.
They were brought from Peshawar for hearing of their case and were produced in the court of senior civil judge Tariq Suhail Khan, on Tuesday under strict security.
Among the 14 detained suspects, seven belong to the held Kashmir, five to NWFP and one each to Azad Kashmir and Punjab. They were identified as: Ghulam Rasool, Suleman, Mohammad Shafique, Roshan Din, Zahid, Obaidullah, Attaur Rehman, Mohammad Farid, Tauseef, Latif-ur-Rehman, Moh-ammad Rafique, Shaheen, Syed Saqib and Mohammad Naeem.
Meanwhile, the police and other investigating agencies continued their operation against suspects and more than a dozen people, mostly including the gunpowder dealers and the cracker- makers were held on Wednesday.
A defence attache of the embassy of Germany, Hartmut Stefanski, on Tuesday visited Mansehra and went to the place of occurrence and met the law-enforcement agencies officials.
Some officials of the investigating agencies have made certain queries and sought clarification from the military attache of the German embassy about the German group leader of the tourists Zeigal Burren and a woman Rita Miyailovic on whose report FIR No 646 was lodged in the model police station Mansehra city on 13th.
The sources informed that both Rita and Zeigal did not mention the fact that they had also stopped in Taxila and Abbottabad on the day of occurrence on their way to Mansehra.
In their statements before police, they are learnt to have stated that they came straight from Flashman’s hotel Rawalpindi to Mansehra and in FIR No 646 they have also reported that on their way to Mansehra they told none about their visit to Ashoka relics.
The German military attache is also learnt to have been clarified that why the tourists’ group did not inform their respective embassies and the local police before leaving the hotel in Rawalpindi for their onward journey and why they did not take with them a local guide for the journey.
After clarification of these queries and some other pertinent questions by the German military attache any progress in the investigation of the case could not be made.