Four suspects were picked up during a late night raid on Thursday by the security forces in Lahore. They were picked in Lahore’s Garhi Shahu area soon after the alleged suicide bomber was traced by the agencies investigating the Dara Darbar bombing.
On Wednesday, suicide bomber targeted an Elite Force van detailed to the security of the Data Darbar shrine. The attack took the lives of twelve individuals.
According to the investigation agencies, the motorcycle rickshaw used in the transportation of the alleged bomber to the shrine was identified.
The suspect took the rickshaw from near the railway station. Video footage obtained by the agencies reportedly shows that the rickshaw driver approached the bomber as the latter approached from Garhi Shahu
“We have shifted our focus to three major terrorist networks of the outlawed Tehreem-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Punjab to uncover handlers/facilitators of the attack,” said the law enforcement agencies.
A senior police officer involved in the ongoing investigation said, “Two high-profile teams had been assigned the task to go after three offshoots of the TTP and their facilitators.”
He further stated that the main concern and focus was on Hizbul Ahrar which had claimed responsibility for bombing Data Darbar on Wednesday.
“The law enforcement agencies were using available resources to track down handlers who dropped the boy (suicide bomber) at the shrine,” he said. He said Hizbul Ahrar, which claimed responsibility for the attack, was a splinter group of Jamaatul Ahrar headed by Muqarram Shah from Afghanistan.
Counter Terrorism Department CTD, which is leading the entire investigation process, is also following other leads, like the possibility of the involvement of Daesh as well, he said.
The official further said the probe was being conducted along the lines of the 2017 Mall Road blast investigation, in which LEAs had successfully arrested the facilitator who dropped the suicide bomber near the target site a few minutes before the blast