Press conference: No headway yet on April 24 attack

Railway Station bomb blast in which four people, including two children, had died as a result of the explosion.

LAHORE:

No headway has been made in the Railway Station bomb blast investigation, SSP (Investigations) Abdur Razzaq Cheema told reporters on Monday.

Four people, including two children, had died as a result of the April 24 explosion.

The SSP said that two teams of Lahore Investigation Police and Railway Police were working on the case. Replying to a question, he said that “involvement of a foreign hand” had not been ruled out.

He was talking to reporters after four suspected robbers were produced before the media. The suspects, he said, had confessed to 73 robberies and snatching incidents as well as two murders. Four laptops, a car, 15 motorcycles, 20 mobiles, six pistols, a shot gun and 70 bullets were recovered from them, the officer claimed.

SSP Cheema, in reply to a question, said that Lahore police had arrested two members of the 32-member Pathan Gang, which is suspected of robbing nine banks in Lahore alone. He said that at least five other suspected members of the Pathan Gang had been apprehended by Kohat police and Rawalpindi police. He described the gang as “very well-organised and well-connected”.

All members, the officer, said were from Kohat or Peshawar. Cheema said that they were dangerous because “each member can start a new gang”. The gang members, he said, meet before robbing a bank and then go their separate ways. He added that the members take turns robbing banks.

Discussing the performance of the Investigation Wing, he said that the officials were trying to be thorough in investigations before submitting a challan in court. He said that the practice of changing investigation officers frequently had been discouraged.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 1^st, 2012.