Pakistani authorities arrest 5 suspects connected to Lahore blast

Lahore: Pakistani authorities have arrested five suspected facilitators of the Taliban suicide bomber who targeted military personnel escorting a national census team and killed seven people here on Wednesday, officials said on Thursday.

"The law enforcement agencies have taken five suspects into custody in Lahore for their alleged connection with Lahore blast. They have been shifted to undisclosed location for interrogation," said a senior police officer.

He said an investigation of the blast claimed by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan was underway and all facilitators of the suicide bomber, said to be an Uzbek, will soon be arrested.

He said the suicide bomber, a member of Jamaat-ur-Ahrar group, had reached Lahore two days before the blast and stayed in the provincial capital of Punjab with the facilitators.

The Counter Terrorism Department of the police has registered a case under several sections of the Explosive Substances Act and the Pakistan Penal Code and under one section of the Anti-terrorism Act against unknown terrorists.

At least seven people, including five soldiers, were killed and 19 injured when the bomber blew himself up as he neared an army vehicle escorting the census team in the city.

The blast was the latest in a series of bombings by militants in Pakistan. In February, nearly 130 people were killed in such attacks.

The blast in Lahore on Wednesday came days after at least 22 people were killed and 57 wounded, when a car bomb ripped through a market in a mainly Shia area of Parachinar of Kurram Agency.