KARACHI: Two suspects belonging to the business community were placed under 90-day preventive detention on Saturday for allegedly financing the attackers who killed 45 Shia Ismaili community members, including 18 women, in a bus near Safoora Goth.

The counter-terrorism department (CTD) of police informed an antiterrorism court about the three-month detention of the two suspects, Mohammad Saleem and Suleman, belonging to the business community of Punjabi Saudagaran.

The CTD claimed to have arrested the two suspected financiers on Oct 16. In an application, the police informed Judge Saleem Raza Baloch of the ATC-III that the suspects had been placed under the preventive detention for an inquiry as provided under Section 11-EEEE of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.

In compliance with Section 11 EEEE (3) of the ATA, the detainees were produced along with their detention orders and jail warrants for the information of the court, they added.

Earlier, Fishermen Cooperative Society vice chairman Sultan Qamar Siddiqui, his brother Hussain Qamar Siddiqui and Sajid Naeem had also been booked for allegedly facilitating the deadly attack.

The Pakistan Rangers had detained the FCS vice chairman and other officials in June for three months for an inquiry and he was handed over to police just last month in the bus carnage case.

The police produced the three suspects before an ATC-I on Oct 16 and sought further extension in their custody on the ground that investigation was still under way. The court had allowed 10-day extension in their physical remand, but expressed displeasure over lack of progress in the investigation against the detained suspects despite being in police custody for a month and directed the police to come up with a progress report on next hearing.

Saad Aziz alias Tin Tin, Tahir Hussain Minhas alias Sain, Asad-ur-Rehman alias Malik, Hafiz Nasir alias Yasir and Mohammad Azhar Ishrat alias Majid have already been charge-sheeted for killing the 45 people, including many women, in the targeted attack on their bus near Safoora Goth on May 13.

The police charge-sheeted Saad, Tahir and Asad for their direct involvement in the case while Nasir and Azhar were named for facilitating the attack.

The CTD claimed to have arrested all the suspects except Asad, who was arrested a couple of weeks later, after a shootout in Gulshan-i-Maymar on May 20 and booked them in nine cases pertaining to police encounter, explosive substances and illicit weapons.

The police obtained the physical remand of Saad, Tahir and Asad in the main bus carnage case on June 12 but did not book the other two suspects despite keeping their custody on physical remand for a couple of weeks in other cases.

The charge-sheet said that seven eyewitnesses/injured including three women had rightly picked out Saad, Tahir and Asad before a judicial magistrate during identification parades.

However, it added that Nasir and Azhar were arrested in the case since a report prepared by a joint investigation team said that they were also allegedly involved in the Safoora bus carnage case as they facilitated the main suspects.

The police report stated that during questioning both the suspects confessed to have provided accommodation, financial assistance and information gathered through reconnaissance to the attackers.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play