QUETTA: Law enforcement agencies have arrested the alleged mastermind of three suicide attacks which claimed lives of 195 people mostly lawyers and police personnel.

This was disclosed by Balochistan Home Minister Mir Sarfaraz Ahmed Bugti while addressing a press conference here on Tuesday.

He was accompanied by Inspector General of Balochistan Police Ahsan Mehboob, Home Secretary Dr Akbar Harifal, Quetta division Commissioner Amjad Ali Khan and spokesman for the Balochistan government Anwarul Haq Kakar.

The minister claimed that Saeed Ahmed Badini alias Taqwa, who was the Quetta emir of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and also worked for the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ), masterminded last year’s attacks on lawyers at the Quetta Civil Hospital, Police Training College in Quetta and Shah Noorani shrine in Khuzdar district.

Minister claims suspect planned assaults on lawyers, police college and Shah Noorani shrine

He said security forces arrested Saeed along with his two aides in Quetta on Tuesday.

The minister said Saeed had confessed to planning various suicide attacks, bomb blasts and targeted killings. The suspect received training of terrorism from the TTP’s training camps in Datta Khel and Miran Shah in North Waziristan, he said, adding that he also joined Mullah Hunar’s camp and visited training camps in Afghanis­tan which were run by India’s spy agency RAW and Afghanistan’s NDS.

Mr Bugti said Saeed, who was made Quetta’s emir of the TTP last year, had confessed during interrogation to his involvement in the killing of Barrister Amanullah Achakzai, principal of the University of Balochistan’s law college. He said he had also planned a suicide bombing at the hospital where Barrister Amanullah was taken after being shot because many senior officials had gathered there at that time. But, he added, he could not implement the plan.

A video of Saeed was shown during the press conference in which he was telling interrogators how he had planned last year’s attack on lawyers at the Quetta Civil Hospital. The attack killed 72 people mostly lawyers.

Saeed told the interrogators that first he attacked Advocate Bilal Anwar Kasi, president of the Balochistan Bar Association, pumping seven bullets in his body. But before attacking Mr Kasi, he had prepared one of his aides, Ahmed Ali, to carry out a suicide bombing.

As soon as Mr Kasi’s body was taken to the Civil Hospital and protesting lawyers gathered there, Ahmed Ali went to the hospital and blew himself up, he told the interrogators.

The minister said Saeed and his group prepared four other suicide bombers. Three of them attacked the Police Training College in Quetta and one Shah Noorani shrine.

He said Saeed had told the interrogators that he had also planned attacks to target Adviser to Balochistan Chief Minister Sardar Raza Muhammad Bareach and provincial Minister Abdul Rahim Ziaratwal. The suspect had also confessed to killing six personnel of the Frontier Corps, four policemen and some civilians, including Dr Sheeraz in his clinic in the Quetta Eastern Bypass area and a PCO owner in the Bashir Chowk area.

Answering a question about progress of investigations into the attack on the convoy of Senate Deputy Chairman Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri in Mastung and the killing of some labourers in Gwadar, the minister said law enforcement agencies were working on both cases and elements behind these attacks would soon be exposed.

In reply to another question, he said, “we have got information who is behind the kidnapping of Higher Education Secretary Abdullah Jan”, adding that efforts were under way for his recovery.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2017