PESHAWAR / ISLAMABAD, Nov 9: Investigators looking for an accomplice of the Dargai suicide bomber appear to have come to a dead end with no sight of the young man who had disappeared into thick sugarcane fields near a village after Wednesday’s attack that killed 42 army recruits.

Security officials told Dawn that hundreds of personnel from the armed forces, Levy and Frontier Constabulary combed the sugarcane fields over an area of about three square kilometres at the break of light on Thursday.

"There were telltale signs of the boy's footprints and traces of blood in the field, but he was nowhere," said one security official.

The suspect, said to be of medium build with a short beard and in his mid-twenties, had apparently lost his shoes while being chased by townspeople before disappearing into the fields. The entire area was combed three times in search of other clues but there was little else the search team found, he said.

The army's tracking dogs followed the blood trail into a nearby Afghan refugee camp and ended up at the base of a hill.

"Looks like the suspect went over the hill. The whole path was strewn with stones and the dogs could not sniff their way through," he said.

But experts from the NWFP's special branch helped investigators draw a sketch of the suspect.

"The rough sketch is ready to be shown to witnesses and townspeople who saw him and chased him into the fields but it may take another day or so before a final sketch is drawn," the official said.

He said that samples from the remains of the suicide bomber had been sent for DNA tests and results were being awaited.

He, however, pointed out that investigators were finding it difficult to draw the identikit of the suicide bomber.

"He was all wrapped up in a shawl and there were few who actually saw his face," another security official said.

Investigators were also trying to find which group was behind the deadly suicide bombing. An unidentified caller to a newspaper office on Wednesday had claimed that Pakistani Taliban had carried out the attack to avenge the Bajaur killing.

The caller identified the commander of the so-called Pakistani Taliban as Abu Kalim Muhammad Ansari and said that another 274 volunteers were ready for suicide missions.

Investigators said the group was not known to security agencies.

"It is a new group," said a senior security official, requesting he not be named.

He said there had been little headway in the investigation and no arrests had been made.

But Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao expressed the confidence that the investigators would soon be able to track down the group.

Mr Sherpao, who visited the army camp in Dargai on Thursday, told Dawn that security in and around military training and education facilities in the country would be beefed up to avoid such incidents.

"Military training and educational institutions in cantonment areas are secure than those in other localities. Therefore, such institutions in civil localities are preferably being provided better security cover."

He said provincial governments had also been directed to take foolproof security measures, especially in the vicinity of military training and education facilities.

When asked whether agencies had received any information about likelihood of more such attacks, he said: "Naturally, in the prevailing spate of terrorism we cannot rule out the possibility of more attacks in any part of the country."

The minister said that a joint team of the army, Federal Investigation Agency and NWFP police had been set up to investigate the attack.

"In the light of the investigation findings, the government will take the case of Dargai suicide attack to a court of law," he said.

Agencies add: Security officials said they were exploring Al Qaeda's possible involvement in the Dargai attack.

Military spokesman Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan said the suicide attack had “definite linkages to Bajaur where the army successfully destroyed a known training camp financed by Al Qaeda.”

Some officials said the proscribed Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM) could be behind the bombing.

The government said the Bajaur seminary hit late last month was run by two wanted TNSM clerics, Maulvi Faqir and Maulvi Liaqat. Maulvi Liaqat was killed in the Oct 30 strike but Maulvi Faqir is still at large.