LAHORE: The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) is groping around in the dark for the arrest of the mastermind as well as facilitators of the suicide blast in Gulshan-i-Iqbal park even about four months after the incident. Over 70 innocent people had died and nearly 300 others sustained injuries.

The blast at the heavily crowded park was declared as the country’s most devastating tragedy in which the anti-state elements had targeted innocent kids and women.

What the CTD could so far establish in this high-profile case is that the defamed Khorasani group/Jamaatul Ahrar (JuA) was behind the terror act, an official privy to the development told Dawn.

That too, he said, had been confirmed in the first week of the incident when the Khorasani group itself owned the terror act and released a photo of the suicide-bomber to a section of media.

The Khorasani group is a splinter outfit of the banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

“The chief minister should ask CTD additional IG Rai Tahir and his team as to what they have been doing at their level to bring the actual culprits to the court of law”, the official said.

The powerful blast had ripped through a massively crowded area of the park on March 28 adjacent to Gate 1 which was housing many swings and rides where hundreds of kids and women were present.

The official said the CTD, which was established with a core purpose of eliminating terrorism in Punjab, could not make any headway into investigation.

He said the target-less CTD officials took into custody 45 suspects from various parts of the province only to release public pressure.

Of them, he said, some were detained under the Protection of Pakistan Act (PoPA) for their inclination towards banned organizations or having their sympathies for such militant outfits.

The others were released after getting assurances from their family members, he said.

Since the PoPA expired on July 14, the detention status of the suspects also got controversial, he said.

The lack of interest, competence and a slow progress into the high-profile case were the main factors which led to failure of CTD officials in reaching the terrorists behind this tragedy, the official claimed.

A spokesman for the CTD clarified the position of officials and claimed that the Gulshan-i-Iqbal park case had been solved.

“The CTD has been working on solid leads”, he said adding that the TTP’s JuA has been found involved in the suicide blast.

“Since both the handler and the facilitator have fled to Afghanistan, the progress in the case has become slow”, the spokesman said.

He said the informers had been hired in Fata to provide information about their entry in Pakistan.

“The teams are present in Fata to launch a swift operation on any actionable information provided by our informers”, he said.

The progress would be shared with the media as and when the information is received, the CTD spokesman said.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2016