Perpetrators of Daska mosque attack arrested

Punjab top cop blames hostile nation’s spy agency for shooting

LAHORE:

The Punjab police chief on Friday maintained that the firing at a mosque in Daska town of Sialkot district on October 11 that claimed at least three lives was sponsored, facilitated and masterminded by a “hostile agency of a rogue state”.

Punjab IGP Usman Anwar, while addressing a news conference at the Central Police Office in Lahore, said they had arrested the attackers and their facilitators within 24 hours.

“We have irrefutable evidence about the involvement of a rogue state in the terrorist attack. This will be shared with the media and world after presenting it before the court,” he added.

Throughout his media talk, the IGP refrained from naming any suspects, country or agency.
He also refused to answer any queries by the reporters.

Unidentified assailants on Wednesday morning fired gunshots at a mosque during Fajr prayers, killing three people.

One of them was the prayer leader of the mosque, a leader of banned militant outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) and his security guard.

The JeM leader was identified as Shahid Latif.

Latif remained in jail after being arrested from Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) in 1993 until his release in 2010. The Indian media had accused him of being involved in the attack on the Pathankot Airbase in 2016.

The Punjab police chief said his new conference could be taken as the preparation for a second one.
“All the evidence that we have to present in the court will be brought before you in the second news conference,” he continued.

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“The purpose of calling you today is to tell you that the security institutions of Pakistan, including the police, Counter Terrorism Department [CTD], Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Intelligence Bureau (IB), and the Military Intelligence (MI) united to track down terrorists in the country within 24 hours,” he maintained.

“After identifying the culprits, we have arrested even more of them, foiling their future attacks,” he added.

Anwar said they had concrete evidence that the activity was planned outside Pakistan by a hostile intelligence agency.

He elaborated that the main handlers of the Daska mosque attack were based abroad. He further said they had also identified the local handlers and facilitators.

Sharing the details of the gory incident, the Punjab IGP said two teams of the attackers had monitored the target on October 6 and 9, while staying in a hotel in Daska.

He continued that an attempt was made to execute the target but the attackers failed and returned to Lahore on October 10.

They went back to to Daska on October 11 and managed to kill the target on the same day in the morning.

“Our intelligence agencies, in particular the CTD, using latest technology and software including Hotel Eye and Face Trace, traced the attackers,” the Punjab police chief explained.

He said after the attack, the CTD; the Pakpattan, Sialkot, Kasur and Lahore police as well as intelligence agencies the ISI, MI, and IB formed teams.

“Through specific tasking and perfect coordination, the teams arrested the attackers,” he added. The teams simultaneously conducted raids in Pakpattan, Lahore, Kasur and other areas over 100 kilometres away from the site of the attack and arrested the assailants.

The IGP said the culprits, who had stayed in hotels for the reconnaissance, were identified using the Hotel Eye software.

He continued that they extracted some irrefutable evidence from a cell phone recovered during the investigation.

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“It was a locked phone but a police officer still extracted data from it,” he added.

The Punjab police chief said these terrorists would be exposed in front of the whole world and brought before the international media, Pakistani nation and institutions.

“We will thwart every dirty conspiracy to disturb the peace of Pakistan with our determination,” he vowed.

Five to six other incidents of target killings similar to the assassination of Latif have been reported in different parts of the country during the last few months.

India faced worldwide condemnations over their premier intelligence agency orchestrating the assassination of a Sikh separatist leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, near a gurdwara in Canada.

Many protests across the world were held against the Sikh leader’s murder including in India, Pakistan and Canada.

The Canadian government officially registered a protest with India against its alleged involvement in the killing.