Karachi: Sindh province chief minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah on Saturday said the plotters of the suicide attack on a Shikarpur mosque and murderers of the leader of a religious party were arrested and announced a five million rupee (Dh180,338) reward for the police team.
Addressing a press conference the chief minister said the police and the paramilitary Rangers had arrested the murder suspects and the accused in the Shikarpur carnage within a month of the incident taking place.
At least 63 people, including children, were killed on January 31, when a powerful bomb, carried by a suicide attacker, ripped through the Friday congregation at a Shiite mosque in the northern district of this province.
Police sources said that at least two suspects of the attack were arrested recently and suicide jackets, explosives and a large number of weapons were recovered. They belonged to banned extremist Sunni outfits.
Shah said that the suicide bomber stayed at Khanpur town, not far from Shikarpur, the arrested men had told the police.
The chief minister said that the murderers of Khalid Mahmoud Soomro were also arrested. Soomro, a senior leader and former senator of Jamiat Ulema-e- Islam (JUI) was assassinated in November last year inside a mosque in Sukkur city.
He also announced a moratorium on the transfer and posting of police officers in the province for the next three months. Shah, substantiating the decision, said that the decision was taken so that an elaborate policy could be framed for the transfer and posting of the police.
The decision was being dubbed as defiance of the earlier decision of the national apex committee meeting held in Karachi with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the chair.
The meeting, attended by the chief of army staff, General Raheel Sharif, besides the chief minister and other senior ministers, had decided that the transfer and posting of the police would not be carried out with political intentions.
Instead, the meeting decided, the provincial apex committee should be consulted for the transfers and posting of security officials in the province.
