In custody: Militants confess to planning, facilitating Imamia Imambargah attack

PESHAWAR:

Two suspected militants arrested by the counter-terrorism department have confessed to planning the suicide attack on Imamia Imambargah in Hayatabad in February. They also confessed to facilitating the suicide bombers who attacked the mosque.

On February 13, three attackers armed with grenades, Kalashnikovs and suicide vests barged into the imambargah located in Hayatabad, Phase-V as Friday prayers were afoot. Following the bombing, the CTD had raided various hideouts of suspected facilitators and had arrested six suspected militants.

Two of them, Riazullah and Imanullah, were produced in the court of a judicial magistrate on Friday where they recorded their statements. The men confessed to providing logistic support and transport facilities to the attackers, including the weapons and vehicles used, as well as driving them to the mosque.

The facilitators also disclosed information about their accomplices which could possibly lead the police to make more arrests soon. The court sent them to Central Prison Peshawar on judicial remand.  “They confessed to playing a key role in the deadly attack and providing logistic support to the bombers,” a CTD official said. “They were produced in an anti-terrorism court which transferred the case to the judicial magistrate where they made their confessions.”

Responsibility for the attack was claimed by a splinter group of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan in an email sent to the media the same day. Jundullah’s spokesperson Muhammad Khorasani claimed the attack was carried out in revenge for the killing of one of their leaders.

Plea bargain

In a separate case, an official of the revenue department, patwari Saeed Khan, arrested by the National Accountability Bureau has paid Rs22.4 million under the plea bargain system. He was being investigated for possessing assets that exceeded his known sources of income. The NAB prosecutor produced Khan’s application in the court of judge Muhammad Ibrahim Khan stating the chairman of NAB had accepted his plea. The court accepted the NAB-approved application of the accused and ordered he be set free.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 23^rd, 2015.