Lahore: (Staff Reporter) A major terror bid has been foiled as the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) personnel arrested seven suspected terrorists of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in a crackdown across Punjab including Lahore. The CTD said that a large quantity of explosives, detonators, weapons and banned literature were seized from the terrorists’ possession.
According to the source the alleged TTP terrorists were identified as Shafiullah, Khalid Mahmood, Mohsin Waqar, Muhammad Usman, Luqman, Muhammad Rafiq and Hafiz Muhammad Farooq. Cases against these terrorists were lodged in Gujranwala, Dera Ghazi Khan, Bahawalpur and Multan. The arrests came a day after TTP claimed a suicide attack that killed two people including a police officer in Islamabad, the first such attack in the federal capital for years.
As per details senior police official Sohail Zafar Chattha said officers had been following a suspicious taxi occupied by a male driver and a woman passenger when he detonated a device inside the car. “They were stopped and the long-haired man was asked to come out,” Chattha said. “He came out, but quickly went back inside and pressed a button that blew up the car.”
Furthermore Tehreek–e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the blast, saying the attack “on the enemies of Islam” was in retaliation for the recent killing of a senior member. The group called off a stop-start ceasefire with the government in November. Haji Mohammad Saeed, 60, a retired government official living in the neighborhood where the attack happened, said authorities should end all negotiations with the TTP. “They are taking advantage of this dialogue and causing violence.”
Moreover earlier this week, Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif called for a fresh security operation against the TTP after suspected militants being held at CTD Centre Bannu overpowered their captors and held them hostage for three days. “Terrorism is on the rise again,” he said. “There’s a spillover effect from the situation in Afghanistan and that’s affecting Pakistan, we have to launch this operation,” the defence minister added. It may be mentioned here that the CTD Punjab in collaboration with police had carried out 433 operations during the on-going week.
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