ISLAMABAD, Aug 22: The government told the National Assembly on Friday a would-be suicide bomber arrested after Thursday’s deadly bombing at the Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) in Wah had given clues about a militant ring in Punjab as members from both sides of the house demanded policy change in the so-called “war on terror”.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani put the casualty toll of the POF attack at 67 killed and 66 wounded and promised a compensation of Rs300,000 each for heirs of the dead and Rs100,000 for the wounded under a uniform policy that he said would apply also to violence victims elsewhere, including the 32 people killed in Dera Ismail Khan and those killed by militants in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).

His interior advise, Rehman Malik, said an investigation team had found out that the Wah attack, the most devastating of the kind on a military site in the country, was carried out by three suicide bombers, rather than two as reported earlier, while a fourth member of the group was arrested with five suicide jackets and a grenade.

He did not identify the arrested member who, he said, had given “several clues” that would help track down “a ring operating in Punjab”.

At the end of the day’s debate on law and order situation, which will continue on Monday when the house is to meet at 5pm, Mr Malik assured the house that replies to several questions raised by members about the ongoing military operations against militants would be available in an in-camera briefing to be given to them.

But a youthful independent member from the Bajaur Agency, Syed Akhonzada Chitan, who sits with the ruling coalition, doubted the authenticity of such an official briefing where he said he would also prove that the present military operation there was aimed against the “poor people of Bajaur” and helped the Taliban rather than eliminate terrorism.

“We have been hurt not so much by the operation as by misstatements,” he said, adding that claims about relief provided to the displaced people were also wrong.

Pakistan Muslim League-N member Khurram Dastagir, in a well-prepared speech, gave a comprehensive set of proposals, including plans to stop fighting “America’s war” in the tribal areas, ending what he called the (intelligence) “agencies game” by closing their political wings and creating a house standing committee for their oversight, and finding a “sustainable solution” with a new governance structure based on the rule of law.

He also called for resorting to only covert and targeted actions against militants, training security forces in insurgency control, finishing the “dream of strategic depth” and locating the sources of funds and weapons reaching the militants.

PML-N’s Mohammad Hanif Abbasi wondered how “hired assassins” in South Waziristan were driving around accompanied by eight to 10 vehicles each.

Awami National Party’s Pervez Khan proposed the convening of a grand jirga of tribal elders from Afghanistan and Pakistan’s Fata and settled areas in which his party leader Asfandyar Wali Khan could play a role to end the crisis in the region and demanded a curtailment of intelligence agencies’ role there.

A former judge, Fakhrunnisa of the Pakistan People’s Party, drew a difference between safe and happy travels in the past to the north of the country and the present dangers there and called for an immediate termination of the military operations and a policy change to settle the crisis through dialogue.

Opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Q member Amir Muqam, from the Swat valley, complained of heavy “collateral damage” from the military operations and demanded enforcement of Sharia in the Malakand area.

On a day when speculation was rife about the proposed candidature of PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari for election as the next president, PML-N’s Ayaz Amir tried to seek a government clarification of a report in the American Newsweek magazine that said the party leader continued to remain under investigation over disputed charges of receiving kickbacks from two Swiss companies during the PPP’s second government in the 1990s.

Though Speaker Fehmida Mirza disallowed the matter to be raised through a point of order, the PML-N member’s move apparently raised many eyebrows as his party is a major partner in the PPP-led coalition government and it came amid still unresolved differences between the two once bitter rivals, but presently allied parties, over the timing of a promised reinstatement of superior court judges sacked by former president Pervez Musharraf.