LeJ mounting attacks to stop hangings, says ministry

ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Interior on Wednesday said the banned outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) was carrying out terrorist activities across the country to get the hangings of its leaders and workers stopped and to secure their release or help them escape.
According to the National Crisis Management Cell (NCMC) ‘threat alert’ issued to the provinces, banned militant groups the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), may jointly carry out terrorist activities.
According to a private television channel, the cell has dispatched a letter (threat alert) to the home secretaries of Sindh, Punjab, KP, Balochistan, provincial police chiefs, the IGFC of KP and Balochistan and authorities in Kashmir and the Gilgit Baltistan region.
“The LeJ is infuriated over crackdown on its activists. LeJ had approached al-Qaeda for help but it expressed its inability to do so citing its preoccupation in other areas like Syria and Iraq. LeJ then contacted TTP chief Mullah Fazlullah who not only provided finance to LeJ but also promised to extend further assistance. Now LeJ-Fazlullah nexus is at work in unleashing the wave of terrorism in the country,” the letter says.
The letter further says that the recent terror attacks are meant to force the government to postpone the hanging of jailed terrorist leaders and activists of LeJ and to secure their release or help them escape.
In the letter, the cell claims that terrorists are planning to conduct terrorist activities in the Punjab, most likely in Lahore.The cell has advised authorities to beef up security as well as vigilance of state buildings, public places, worship places and religious leaders to thwart the nefarious designs of terrorists.