Pak police arrest three suspects linked to car bomb attack

Lahore, Mar 9: Pakistani police today said they had arrested three suspects in connection with a car bomb attack near an office of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency in Faisalabad that killed 25 people and injured over 130 others.

Punjab police chief Javed Iqbal said a suspect identified as Usman was arrested at the site of the blast yesterday.

Acting on information provided by Usman, police conducted raids and arrested two more suspects, Iqbal told reporters on the sidelines of a function at a police training school here.

The arrested persons allegedly had links with a militant group but Iqbal refused to say whether they were members of the Punjabi Taliban.

The arrests had helped uncover the network behind yesterday's attack in Faisalabad, he said. Iqbal acknowledged that the attackers wanted to target the ISI office. The car bomb caused widespread devastation when it went off at a CNG station near the ISI office.

Several nearby buildings, including an office of the state-run Pakistan International Airlines, were damaged by the explosion.

The owner of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was carried out to avenge the killing of a former Lashker-e-Taiba commander who was shot dead by security forces in Faisalabad last year.

PTI