KARACHI, April 14: An FIR in connection with the Nishtar Park blast, in which 47 people were killed and more than 100 got injured, was registered at the Solider Bazar police station against unknown suspects here on Friday, after a lapse of 72 hours.
Police said that FIR 71/2006 was registered on the complaint of Altaf Qadri, Nazim, Jamat Ahle Sunnat, against unknown persons under sections 302, 324 of the CrPC, and sections 7/7, 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act and Explosives Act.
A senior official of Jamshed Town police said that the complainant in his FIR said that he was offering Maghrib prayers led by Allama Shah Turabul Haq in the first row and had suffered minor injuries in the blast.
When contacted for their version, a spokesman for the Sunni Tehreek, however, said that the tehreek had nothing to do with the FIR 71/2006.
The new leadership of the Sunni Tehreek, had on Wednesday, blamed the Sindh government for the Nishtar Park tragedy, but they have not yet approached the police to lodge an FIR, police officials said.
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement leadership, including Altaf Hussain, had however alleged that the Jamaat-i-Islami had a hand in Tuesday’s blast.
A police official was of the view that the spate of accusation and counter-accusation was further complicating the situation.
“An initial difference of opinion among some senior police officials about the nature of the blast added to the confusion”, the official added.
While the provincial and city police chiefs and DIG operations from the very beginning focussed on the theory of suicide bombing the DIG investigation, Manzoor Moghal, had till Wednesday refused to buy the theory.
The nature of the blast is yet to be established—suicide bombing or a bomb being planted—the investigators are now convinced that the tragedy was not an individual’s act.
“It must be a group of people who planned and executed this ghastly attack,” a police official said.
