Police said on Saturday they had arrested three members of a banned Islamic group, thought to be behind several attacks against Shias in the country. The arrests were made in an operation late on Friday night at Sukkur Railway Station, area police chief Mazhar Nawaz Sheikh told reporters at a press briefing. He said the suspects were operatives of the banned Sunni militant Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group, and were planning attacks on Shias in the first week of next month in Balochistan. “They were planning a suicide attack on a gathering of Shias in Balochistan,” claimed Sheikh, saying that police seized a suicide jacket, two pistols and eight hand grenades from the suspects. He said that one of the men was thought to have been involved in a deadly attack on Shias in the area last year. He said the had planned to carry out suicide bombings in Sukkur and Rohri on Muharram 9 and 10, but failed because of tight security arrangements.
He said that police initially arrested Muhammad Ali Soomro and Abdullah alias Irfan from the station. He said the men told them about two of their accomplices, and in another raid, Naseer Ahmed Raisani was arrested, but his partner Jalil Ahmed Babiki fled.
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