Police conducted a search operation in Iqbal Town and its adjacent areas over security concerns on Monday night and apprehended 15 suspects who failed to produce identity documents, local media reported.
Police searched hotels and hostels in the area and also conducted house-to-house search during which biometric device was also used and arrested 15 persons who failed to produce identity documents.
A massive crackdown was launched in Punjab against the criminal elements after March 27 suicide attack in Lahore’s Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park in which more than 70 persons were killed and over 300 were wounded.
The suicide attack was claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban’s Jamaat-ur-Ahrar faction, which once declared loyalty to Daesh, also known as Islamic State.
The brutality of the attack, Jamaat-ur-Ahrar’s fifth bombing since December, reflects the movement’s attempts to raise its profile among Pakistan’s increasingly fractured militants.
At least 29 children enjoying the outing were among those killed when the suicide bomber struck in a busy park in the heart of Lahore, the power base of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
It was Pakistan’s deadliest attack since the December 2014 massacre of 134 school children at a military-run academy in the city of Peshawar that prompted a government crackdown on militancy.
After the attack, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif directed to launch a large-scale anti-terrorism operation across Punjab.
Hundreds of suspects have been arrested from Faisalabad, Multan, Bahawalpur, Jhelum, Nankana, Lahore, Sheikhpura and other areas since then.
