KP Police to contact Italian counterparts

PESHAWAR: The KP Police would contact the Italian Police who a day earlier claimed to have rounded up suspects for having links to terror attacks in Pakistan including the Meena Bazaar blast in Peshawar in which more than 123 people were killed, a source said. “We are going to contact the concerned officials through proper channel,” a senior official of the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) told The News.
Officials of the Italian Police on Friday said they carried out raids for the arrest of 18 Pakistani and Afghan suspects and arrested a few of them. The Italian Police said the suspects were believed to be involved in attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, including the one in a Peshawar bazaar in 2009. It said those held during the raids included a prayer leader who was arrested from Bergamo town.
The CTD KP official said the police and law-enforcement agencies have arrested a large number of attackers in connection with the terror attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in recent years. “However, there are many who are at large and we are looking for them,” said the CTD official.
The blast in Meena Bazaar was one of the worst terrorist attacks in Pakistan that killed 123 people and injured well over 200 others. On October 28, 2009, a terrorist parked an explosive-laden car close to the entrance of the congested Meena Bazaar that went off with a deafening sound.Apart from killing a large number of people, the impact of the explosion razed to the ground several markets, houses, a mosque and other structures.