ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan made guesses in an outraged National Assembly on Monday about who could have carried out the day’s bloodbath in Islamabad district courts and had a surprise news that the government had even asked the Taliban rebels to help identify the culprits.

His statement after blistering opposition attacks against the government in both houses of parliament for a security failure revealed that the authorities had contacted the Taliban peace negotiators after Monday morning’s gunfire and suicide attack in central Islamabad’s court premises left 11 people dead, including an additional district and sessions judge and three lawyers, and 29 injured.

Assuring the lower house of the government’s determination to trace the planners of the attack by at least two gunmen, who later blew themselves up, and bring them to justice, he talked of three possibilities: either it was the work of some associates of seven men picked up around Islamabad in the past week, or of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or some foreign-aided group seeking to sabotage peace dialogue with the TTP.

Then he said the government side had asked the Taliban negotiating committee to seek a condemnation of the attack by the TTP, which has already dissociated itself from the incident, and that “they too should trace out (those responsible) before we do it”.

But he did not say whether any meeting between a four-member government committee and three Taliban nominees had been planned as a follow-up of what has been described as a unilateral TTP ceasefire for one month announced on Saturday and a government response by calling off air strikes against militants hideouts in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).

Opposition lawmakers in both the Senate and National Assembly slammed the government over what they saw as a failure of its security agencies after recent claims by Chaudhry Nisar that Islamabad was very safe though the leader of opposition in the National Assembly, Khursheed Ahmed Shah, assured opposition’s support whether government held talks with the Taliban or showed the nerve to fight them, but an opposition senator, Zahid Khan of the Awami National Party (ANP) asked the interior minister to resign.

While the minister angrily responded to the opposition criticism in the National Assembly, the Senate was adjourned early following an opposition protest walkout.

Both the houses suspended their scheduled business for the day to discuss the attack, which Chaudhry Nisar called a “wound for whole of Pakistan” before rejecting charges that the government was showing weakness in fighting terrorism.“Whatever terrorists do, our resolve will not weaken and we will face terrorists with the same steadfastness and courage” (as before), the minister said.

While narrating the sequence of the court attack starting at 9.5am with what he called indiscriminate gunfire and culminating in suicide explosions by the two attackers, he said he would not disclose the entire information gathered until Monday evening so as not to conflict with the more accurate account that might be available for presentation on Tuesday before the Supreme Court, which has taken a suo motu notice of the incident.

But he said the district courts complex proved to be the “softest target” because of its location amidst the market centre of the capital’s F-8 sector and free movement there of thousands of people every day.

He said though the military had gained experience of facing guerilla tactics of terrorists, police were not well trained for this type of warfare.

But he said this deficiency would be met under the new internal security policy he unveiled last week, and new equipment like the planned installation of 1,600 cameras around Islamabad with a central command, import of 65 vehicles to detect improvised explosive devices, and special counter-terrorism equipment imported from China.

Opening the debate in the National Assembly, which suspended its regular business for the day, Mr Khursheed Shah said that instead of mere dissociation from the Islamabad attack, the TTP should have condemned this as well as another attack that killed two soldiers of the paramilitary Frontier Corps at Landikotal in Khyber tribal agency, to show its seriousness about ceasefire.

He regretted that despite repeated assurances of support to the government from all opposition parties in tackling terrorism, “you seem to talk from a weak footing”.

Calling the court attack as “intolerable”, Mr Shah endorsed fears expressed by Awami Muslim League leader Sheikh Rashid Ahmed that parliament could become another target.

“The government should open its eyes to protect Pakistan,” he said and demanded that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif talk to opposition parties to chalk out the future course of action.

While Sheikh Rohale Asghar, a back-benches of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N, ridiculed the opposition for what he called creating an atmosphere of fear rather than of national determination to fight terrorism, Javed Hashmi and Shafqat Mahmood of Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) parliamentary leader Farooq Sattar and Ayaz Soomro of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) all called upon the government to match its words with action.

In the Senate, PPP’s Babar Awan, Farhatullah Babar and Saeed Ghani, ANP’s Haji Mohammad Adeel and Zahid Khan, and MQM’s Tahir Hussain Mashhadi lambasted the government for alleged weaknesses before all opposition parties walked out to protest against lack of response to their protests by both the interior minister and the prime minister just as Minister of State for Interior Mohammad Balighur Rehman arrived in the house to apparently respond to them.

At this Senate Chairman Nayyar Hussain Bokhari asked Mr Rehman to present a detailed report on Tuesday about the attack before adjourning the house for the day.