LAHORE: The Punjab Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) on Thursday lodged a case of the hand grenade attack on the residence of former chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) Saqib Nisar under Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) and other heinous charges.

The FIR was registered on the complaint of retired police constable Sajjad Hussain, an employee at the residence of Saqib Nisar.

Some senior officials from the CTD told Dawn that the department launched formal investigations into the incident. They said the CTD police had started geofencing of the area and dispatched another team to take help from the Safe City cameras to trace the attackers.

According to the initial investigations so far, the CTD officials said, it was not sure whether the assailants came on motorbikes or cars, adding the exact number of the attackers was yet to be ascertained.

Some Safe City cameras also spotted a suspected car and the CTD teams were working to trace it, they said.

About the involvement of the terrorist outfits, they said no banned organisation claimed responsibility for the attack so far.

The FIR did not mention any militant organisation behind the act as it claimed the ‘unknown suspects’ threw a hand grenade, injuring three persons including the complainant of the case and the two police employees on guard at the residence of the former CJP.

Mr Sajjad declared in the FIR that the attack was carried out on the security staff.

“Constables Khurram Shahzad and Amir Ali were on duty when a hand grenade was thrown on them at 8:40pm”, reads the FIR.

As a result, the complainant said, a powerful blast occurred and two vehicles parked at the garage of the house partially damaged and the windowpanes of the house shattered.

The hand grenade also injured him, and the two constables, he said.

In the FIR, the CTD officials claimed that they were present at the Raja Market of Garden Town in search of some suspects of a banned militant organisation when the attack was carried out.

They immediately reached the blast site where the complainant met them and spoke of the attack.

Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2023