Islamabad: Rescue 15 blast: Investigators hopeful of catching perpetrators

[Naveed Yaseen]

* Crime scene preserved g FIR registered g 1,000 body pieces of suicide attacker sent to forensic lab
* Fingerprints sent to NADRA for verification
* Sniffer dogs called to follow track of attacker from Rescue 15 office to his hideout

By Imran Asghar

ISLAMABAD: Investigators of Rescue 15 attack case are confident that they will soon trace whereabouts of the suicide bomber, his facilitators and trainers, as they have collected sufficient evidences from crime scene and preserved it properly.

Sources privy to Joint Investigation Team (JIT) told Daily Times on Sunday that investigators of different departments including Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Crime Investigation Department (CID) and experts in the probe of suicide bombings from secret agencies had formally launched investigation into the attack on Rescue 15 office in Islamabad.

First information report (FIR) of the incident has been registered with Margalla Police Station under anti-terrorism act. Security of the city has been tightened in the wake of the attack.

“Over 1,000 scattered body pieces of the suicide bomber, who blew himself up at Rescue 15 office on Saturday and killed two police officials, have been collected from 50-feet radius of the crime scene,” they said.

They said the body pieces included eight fingers, a hand, eyebrows, skin of nose, thighs, skin of skull and other body parts. They said all the body pieces had been dispatched to Forensic Laboratory where the forensic experts would number them before conducting DNA test.

“Finger prints of the suicide bomber have also been saved on computer and on paper. They will be sent to NADRA for verification,” they said. The sources said that data of fingerprint would also be sent to the Heinous Crime Management Cell (HCMC), Rawalpindi, to detect previous criminal record, if any, of the suicide attacker.

They said the investigators had properly preserved crime scene on digital still and movie cameras and experts had sketched it out on paper.

Over 500 shrapnel, bullets, pieces of suicide vest and the dress worn by the suicide bomber had been collected from the scene, they said. They said footage of CCTVs would be retrieved from the monitoring room and would be helpful in investigation if it captured the suicide bomber.

They said technical groups of different law enforcement agencies (LEAs) had been given the task of compiling a comprehensive data of the phone calls made within 100-feet radius of the crime scene in three hours before the attack.

“Sniffer dogs have been called to follow track of the suicide bomber from Rescue 15 office to his hideout,” they said.

The investigators were hopeful that it would a major breakthrough if the sniffer dogs succeeded in finding hideouts of the attacker, they said.

They said the investigators were recording statements of injured policemen and other eyewitnesses.

“Islamabad police, in collaboration with other LEAs, have arrested three suspected suicide bombers over last two months,” they said, adding the investigators would also question them in connection with the recent attack.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...009_pg11_1