RAWALPINDI, Dec 22: Security officials investigating the Muharram suicide attack here still remain clueless about the bomber and his facilitators.

The attack in the Dhoke Syedan locality of the garrison city on November 21 left 20 people dead and scores of others injured.

A joint team comprising officers from the counter-terrorism department (CTD) and the police formed to probe the incident has so far even not received the DNA test reports which may help it trace the suicide bomber.

Sources said the team had enlarged its scope of investigation and grilled a number of prisoners involved in high-profile terrorism cases and being held in the Central Jail Adiala.

“Yes, the prisoners in terrorism cases were investigated in connection with the Dhoke Syedan suicide attack case. The investigators are trying to trace their (prisoners’) communication links with people outside the jail,” said a senior police official requesting not to be named. A preliminary report prepared by the counter-terrorism department was sent to Lahore on Wednesday. The report contained the statements of the survivors of the attack, injured policemen, a fingerprint report, photographs and a video clip of the site of the blast.

The investigators also examined some evidence collected from the spot but they believed that 70 per cent of the evidence had been destroyed by the participants of the procession who could not be kept away from the site after the attack.

The sources said after securing the scene of crime, investigators usually collect fingerprints, blood samples and hair of the deceased, soil samples and pellets for probe.

“Evidences collected from the scene are always very vital in the investigation but unfortunately in this case about 70 per cent of the evidences were destroyed by the mob,” one of the investigators said.

A doctor, who conducted postmortem on the bodies, told Dawn that four blood samples obtained from the body parts lying at the District Headquarters Hospital were sent to the laboratory in Lahore. However, the DNA report is still awaited.

About the delay in the DNA test, a police official said first they had tried to get the samples tested from an Islamabad laboratory but they (lab administration) refused to entertain the request on the ground that the crime scene was out of the limits of the federal territory.

Then another attempt was made by the police to get help from a government hospital in Rawalpindi. However, again the police were told by the hospital administration to approach them through the ministry concerned.

Finally, the investigators had to send the samples to Lahore from where the results were awaited.

A senior police official said lack of coordination among government institutions showed non-seriousness in the investigation of the terrorism case. He said such investigations should be taken up on a priority basis without any hindrance.