A police-led operation targeting the master bombers of Rashidabad appears to have been sucked deeper into the mire after raiding teams failed to arrest three of the four fugitives. A raiding team that had taken along their relatives during its searches on Sunday returned empty handed. One of the bombers, Syed Amjad Abbas Shah, was earlier arrested by policemen in Bhakkar following a mid-night swoop. Shah's father-in-law and three brothers-in-law, who had accompanied the raiding police team, were later released when Shia leaders pleaded with the police. However, his father, Ghulam Abbas Shah, and a brother-in-law of his, Ali-Raza, aged 10, still remain in police custody.Thirty-two-year-old Syed Irfan Ali, one of the car bombers serving a 14-day remanded will appear in court on November 4. Under the pressure of police questioning, Ali went to pieces and confessed the crime and also gave the names of his collaborators, including one being a Pasban-i-Islam activist. Ali also revealed the names of three of his accomplices, Ali Shah, from Rawalpindi, and Amjad Shah and Ghulam Abbas, from Bhakkar, admitting that they too were the Pasban-i-Islam zealots. It was later emerged from the questioning that their original plan had targeted leaders of the outlawed militant organisation, Millat-i-Islamia, by parking a car near the congregation, but instead they were forced to park it elsewhere when it was all over.
Police sleuths squeezed more information out of Ali who admitted that he had arrived in Multan to plan terror attacks and stayed in an inn near the Gaddafi Square on October 2. Ali revealed that he had carried six fake identification cards, including a police service card, to escape being recognised. Akhtar Bharwana, who had reactivated the Pasban-i-Islam after the bombing in Sialkot, had left Iran for Pakistan last year and began contacting several activists of the Pasban-i-Islama and the Sipah-i-Sahaba, Ali told interrogating officers.