- FIR points out two accomplices of attacker
The suicide bomber who wreaked havoc near Ferozepur Road was around 16 to 17 years of age and arrived in a rickshaw, a private TV channel quoted intelligence officials as saying.
The First Information Report (FIR) on Monday’s suicide attack states that the attacker had two accomplices, it surfaced on Tuesday. The FIR, registered against three unidentified persons states, the bomber bid farewell to two people before approaching the policemen resting under the shade of a tree and detonating the bomb.
The bomber traversed from Gajju Matta town to the Kot Lakhpat in a rickshaw, the officials quoted as saying. On Tuesday, the Punjab government has decided to form a Joint Investigation Team into the Ferozepur incident. The investigation team would comprise additional home secretary, officials of the counter-terrorism department, police and intelligence agencies.
Earlier reports had stated that the bomber travelled on a motorcycle. All the motorcycles destroyed in the blast belonged to the victims, the authorities said. DNA tests of the terrorist’s severed limbs are being conducted while further investigations are also under way. The investigators are attempting to identify the bomber and his facilitators and trace their movement.
Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the nation would avenge Monday’s cowardly attack. At present, two injured are in critical condition. Of the total injured, 35 are under treatment at the General Hospital, 13 in Jinnah Hospital, five at the Ittefaq Hospital and one at the Services Hospital.
The security officials have also placed blockades at various places surrounding the site. However, the Ferozepur Road has now been opened for all kind of traffic. Funeral prayers of the martyred policemen were offered at Kot Lakhpat, and the bodies of the deceased have been handed over to their heirs for burial in their native towns.
Anger was growing as the grief-stricken relatives of 26 people martyred by a bomber in Lahore a day earlier buried their loved ones and demanded the government publicly hang the masterminds of the attack. Families and residents demanded action as they attended funeral prayers.
“We demand from the government that those who are involved in this incident and those who are the facilitators should be hanged in public,” said Hafiz Naseeruddin, uncle of a policeman martyred in the blast. “We came here in great grief,” said Shaikh Rizwan, a resident who attended the funeral prayers for some of the victims.
Police have said their initial investigations show the attack, claimed by the Taliban, was carried out by a bomber. Forensic experts were collecting evidence from the site of the blast on Tuesday.