Lahore, May 31: Seven men have been arrested over alleged links to the militants who attacked a minority sect in eastern Pakistan, killing 93 people, police said today.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik visited one of the two mosques attacked Friday in Lahore and promised to work with local officials to tackle the growing problem of militancy in Pakistan’s heartland of Punjab province.
“The terrorists, who have been hiding in southern Punjab, have now surfaced,” said Malik. “Our action will be stronger now because we cannot tolerate these killings.”
The government has been criticised for lacking the will to crack down on militants in Punjab, many of whom are part of now-banned militant groups that were started with government support in the 1980s and 1990s to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan and pressure archenemy India.
Many of these groups, including Lashkar—e—Taiba, Lashkar—e—Jhangvi and Jaish—e—Mohammad, have formed links with the Pakistani Taliban, which has recruited militants to carry out attacks in parts of Pakistan far from its sanctuary in the northwest near Afghanistan.
Police said the seven men arrested over the past two days in different parts of Punjab belonged to a variety of militant groups but refused to specify which ones. The arrests were fuelled by information gleaned from one of the attackers who was captured Friday.
“We have good leads,” said senior Lahore police officer Chaudhry Shafiq. “We hope to round up all the handlers and backers of the attackers soon.”
Friday’s attacks targeted the Ahmadi sect, a minority reviled as heretics by mainstream Muslims.
Seven gunmen attacked two mosques in Lahore with assault rifles, grenades and suicide vests. At least two of the attackers were captured, while some died in the standoff or by detonating their explosives.
—–PTI