KARACHI: Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Friday accused the banned terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Jhangvi of attacking the CID building in Karachi, stoking fears that militant networks were expanding their fight in the country’s economic capital.
“Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is behind the attack on the CID building,” the minister told reporters in Islamabad on Friday. Gunmen rode up to the Crime Investigation Department (CID), used to detain terror suspects, on Thursday evening, exchanged fire with police and detonated a truck packed with explosives.
The attack killed up to 18 people including security men and damaged the building in Karachi’s most fortified downtown area, near government buildings, the US Consulate, five-star hotels frequented by Westerners and high-rise company offices.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) swiftly claimed responsibility, with spokesman Azam Tariq telling AFP from an undisclosed location that the attack was to avenge “the arrest and torture” of his comrades.
But the interior minister blamed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the Al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked extremist group notorious for attacking Shias and with roots in Punjab, not the northwest.
