KARACHI/LAHORE, April 28 (PTI): Pakistani investigators probing the suicide attack by a woman at the Karachi University that killed three Chinese teachers have not ruled out the presence of more female suicide bombers at sleeper cells of the outlawed Baluchistan Liberation Army, even as police in Lahore have arrested a suspect from Punjab University in connection with the bombing.
On Tuesday, an explosion triggered by a burqa-clad woman suicide bomber from the Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) ripped through a van of the Confucius Institute at the prestigious University of Karachi, leaving three Chinese teachers dead and one injured, in the latest targeted attack against Chinese citizens in Pakistan.
Following the incident, the banned BLA took to social media to claim responsibility and announce that the bomber was a woman named Shaari Baloch who was highly educated mother of two young children, belonging to a well-established family and working as a school teacher in her native Turbat, Balochistan.
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The Anti-Terrorism Department of the Sindh Police also identified the bomber who was born in Turbat in 1991 but settled in Kech district of the restive Baluchistan province.
“Initial investigations confirmed she was part of the banned Majeed brigade, a part of the BLA which has brainwashed these suicide bombers,” an official of the Anti-Terrorism Department said.
“We are looking into possiblities that there might be more female suicide bombers brainwashed to become part of the Majeed Brigade and waiting in sleeper cells,” he said.
He confirmed that initial investigations had shown that Shari Baloch did not carry out the attack independently and was guided and helped by her handlers/facilitators, including a woman who met her at the entrance of the university and apparently briefed her before she went to the entrance of the Confucius Institute where she detonated herself as soon as the coaster van carrying the Chinese academics came.
“We suspect this operation was carried out with inside information,” the official said.
On Wednesday, the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab Police have arrested a suspect from Lahore’s Punjab University in connection with the suicide bombing at the Karachi University.
The intelligence agencies tracked down a suspect with whom Shari Baloch remained in contact by cellphone in Lahore and arrested him during a raid at a hostel of the Punjab University, a source in CTD told PTI on Thursday.
The suspect has been identified as Bebagr Imdad, a student of the seventh semester of English Literature in Numl, Islamabad. He also belongs to the area where Shaari Baloch lived.
“The agencies are picking up all those who remained in contact with Shaari before she blew herself up and Bebagr was one of them,” he said.
A Punjab University spokesperson Khurram Shahzad told PTI that Bebagr had come to Lahore two days ago from Islamabad.
“On Tuesday, he visited his cousin at hostel 7 who is a history department student. On Wednesday, a security agency official approached the varsity administration and told it that it needed to take Bebagr into custody for his alleged link with the Karachi University bombing. The Punjab University obliged the request and now he is being interrogated,” Shehzad said.
Some 300 students from Balochistan are currently studying at the Punjab University.
The security agencies are now searching for the husband of Shari Baloch, Dr Haibatan, who was apparently doing a public health course at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) and was staying at a nearby hotel. However, his wife lived in Gulistan-i-Jauhar with her two children.
Counter-Terrorism Department official Raja Umar Khatab said that Shari Baloch and her husband had left their places a week before the attack and the husband’s whereabouts were not known. Raids were being carried out to find the husband and other facilitators, he said.
The CTD official also made it clear that Shari Baloch was not a student at the KU and in fact had done her BE and ME from the University of Balochistan and had also worked as a government teacher.
The officer said that the outlawed BLA had claimed responsibility for the attack and shared details about the attacker on their social media platforms. “We also suspect the involvement of a hostile foreign agency in this attack,” he said.
