ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) administration on Saturday constituted a four-member joint investigative team (JIT) to probe a suicide blast that claimed two lives and injured several others during a snap checking of a vehicle in the city on Friday.
The decision was taken after a written request from police officials who noted that the incident’s report had been registered under the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) that justified the demand for a high-level inquiry.
Friday’s explosion was claimed by a proscribed militant network, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which said the attack was launched to avenge the killing of its senior commander Khalid Khorasani in Afghanistan last August.
Much of the TTP leadership is based in Pakistan’s neighboring state in the northwest, making the foreign office in Islamabad urge the interim Taliban administration in Kabul not to allow armed groups to use Afghan soil against other countries.
“Pursuant to the request of [Assistant Inspector General/Operations], Office of the Inspector General of Police ... a Joint Investigation Team is hereby constituted under section 19-A of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997- to investigate [the] case,” said the Office of the chief commissioner, Islamabad, in an official notification.
It said that a senior counterterrorism department official would head the team which would also have representatives of the Intelligence Bureau and Inter-Services Intelligence.
“The Joint Investigation Team shall complete investigation within the stipulated time period laid down in the ATA 1997,” the notification added.
Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant violence in recent weeks, though such incidents have mostly remained confined to the northwestern territories of the country bordering Afghanistan.
According to police authorities, security in the federal capital was on high alert when the suicide explosion was carried out by a militant who was in a cab that was stopped for snap checking.
Pakistan’s interior minister Rana Sanaullah said on Friday the incident in Islamabad had been masterminded by those sitting abroad, as he made a veiled reference to the TTP leadership.
