Pakistani police said on Tuesday it had detained a gang of sectarian militants trained in Afghanistan and suspected of involvement in the massacre of dozens of minority Shia Muslims. Police had "succeeded in tracing major cases of sectarian terrorism" which took place in Balochistan in the past five years, city police chief Pervaiz Rafi Bhatti said. "We have arrested 10 most wanted men accused of involvement in sectarian killings" in recent weeks, Bhatti told reporters late Monday.
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The detainees included the "mastermind" Daud Badani and his accomplices who belonged to the outlawed extremist Sunni militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ), he said. Badani had told investigators he, along with some colleagues, went to Afghanistan where he met with LJ founder Riaz Basra who offered them training in subversive activities, Bhatti said. Basra, wanted in connection with about 100 sectarian killings, remained under Taliban's protection until US-led military operations ousted Afghanistan's fundamentalist regime in late 2001. Badani told police Basra gave him money to buy a motorbike for terrorist activities and he had sold his own oil tanker to purchase arms and ammunition for his group's activities. |