KARACHI, April 6: In a surprising development, a senior police officer who had survived a suicide attack in the city on Thursday has accused a fellow officer, and not terrorists, of having hatched the conspiracy to kill him.

SP Anwar Ahmed Khan lodged a complaint in which he named Azam Mehsud, an inspector of Karachi police, his brother and a number of other people as accused.

The SP was going to the District Courts in Malir in a convoy of five vehicles to attend a meeting when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the junction of Jinnah Avenue and Sharea Faisal in Malir Halt. At least four passersby were killed and 17 others injured.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

SP Khan lodged the FIR 48/2012 under sections 302, 324, 427 and 120 of the Pakistan Penal Code, section 3/4 of the Explosives Act and section 7 of the Anti Terrorism Act at the Model Colony police station late on Thursday night.

In 2009, SSP Farooq Awan was injured and a policeman was killed when they came under fire in Sohrab Goth where they were searching for a kidnapped man. Sherzaman Mehsud, a brother of Inspector Azam, was suspected of being involved in the kidnapping and of carrying out the attack on the SSP.

Sherzaman was later arrested from a private hospital where he was undergoing treatment for gunshot wounds.

According to police, the accused was recently released from jail.

SSP (Range Crime East) Niaz Khoso confirmed that Azam Mehsud, a former SHO of Sohrab Goth, had been booked under section 120 of the PPC for his alleged involvement in plotting the suicide attack.