Four suspects of Lahore blast arrested

LAHORE: Security forces picked up four suspects during a late night raid Thursday in the Garhi Shahu area soon after agencies investigating the Data Darbar bombing traced the alleged suicide bomber to the locality.

Twelve individuals lost their lives in what officials had described as a suicide bombing targeting an Elite Force van deployed for security of Data Darbar shrine on Wednesday.

Agencies investigating the bombing said they had identified a motorcycle-rickshaw used to transport the suspected bomber to the shrine. The suspect took the rickshaw from near the railway station. Video footage obtained by the agencies reportedly showed that the rickshaw driver approached the bomber as the latter approached from Garhi Shahu.

Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies said they had shifted their focus on three major terrorist networks of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Punjab to uncover handlers’ facilitators of the attack.

Talking about the ongoing investigation into the suicide blast, a senior police officer told that two high profile teams had been assigned the task to go after three offshoots of the TTP and their facilitators.

He said the major focus was on Hizbul Ahrar which had claimed responsibility for sending the teenage suicide bomber to Data Darbar on Wednesday. He said the law enforcement agencies were using available resources to track down handlers who dropped the boy (suicide bomber) at the shrine.

The official said the probe was being conducted along the lines of the 2017 Mall Road blast investigation in which LEAs had successfully arrested the facilitator who dropped the suicide bomber near the target site a few minutes before the blast.