recent one of them was the attack on Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the chief of the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam-Fazl, in Quetta in October last year.
It had claimed responsibility for the murder of Samiullah Khan Afridi, the lawyer of Dr Shakil Afridi, who helped the US find Osama bin Laden, and the attacks on a Shia mosque in Rawalpindi and an imambargah in Shikarpur earlier this year.
The group had also said it was responsible for the attack on the Wagah border crossing in Lahore in November last year.
Some ISIS pamphlets were found at the scene of the Safoora Chowrangi bus attack, both in English and Urdu, in which the terrorist group vowed to continue targeting the Shia community.
Security analysts and police officials say that they have witnessed many contradictory claims by different terrorist organisations in the past.
“So claiming responsibility doesn’t necessarily establish that the group did it,” Khan told The News.
On the basis of the pattern and forensic reports, Khan believes that it is the work of al Qaeda or a group associated with it. “It [al Qaeda] mostly doesn’t claim responsibility,” he said. “An ISIS pamphlet was found at the site where American professor Debra Lobo was attacked too. But it later turned out to be carried out by an al Qaeda group comprising educated youths.”
Muhammad Amir Rana, the director of Pak Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), believes that the Jundullah, which is active in Balochistan and rural Sindh, might be behind the attack.
“The group is associated with the ISIS and involved in recent subversive attacks in Balochistan and Sindh,” he observed.
A senior police officer says that it is very hard to identify which group was involved in the attack.
“We are witnessing new styles and new players in such attacks and it is a growing concern for the law enforcement agencies,” he noted.
Targeting a certain community in buses has happened in the past in Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan.
In 2004, militants attacked a bus carrying Shia employees of the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission, the national space agency.
Ongoing operation
Some police officials say that the focus of the operation against in criminals in Karachi has primarily been on political parties involved in violent activities, criminal syndicates and different factions of the TTP.
“It is true that we have shattered the networks of all three factions of Taliban militants by killing or arresting their key leaders in the city,” said the police official. “But the case of sectarian groups is different as they operate under the cover of sect-based religious parties,” he added.
The highest number of sectarian attacks in a region of Pakistan in 2014 took place in Karachi. In 82 attacks, 72 people were killed and 64 others injured, according to the PIPS annual security report.