Karachi, Nov 11: The alleged mastermind of the Karachi airport suicide attack and four suspected accomplices, including a female bomber, have been arrested, police said on Monday.
The five militants were arrested last week from different parts of the restive Balochistan province, Umar Khatab, a senior official of the Sindh Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), said.
The blast on 6th October killed four people including the two Chinese engineers and wounded 17 others.
Two Chinese nationals were killed and 17 people injured in the suicide attack by the banned Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) that targeted a convoy of Chinese workers near the Jinnah International Airport on October 6.
“We were able to identify those responsible for the attack through face verification and one of them is a trained female militant and bomber,” Khatab said.
He said the female militant had accompanied the attack’s mastermind in an SUV, witnessing the suicide bomber targeting the vehicle, carrying the Chinese nationals returning from a port industrial site on the outskirts of Karachi, at the airport signal.
Khatab said separatist groups have started recruiting young females to carry out terror attacks and recalled that some years back a female suicide bomber hit a van inside the Karachi University, killing Chinese teachers.
Among outlawed separatist groups in Balochistan, the BLA (Majeed group) has been the most active in carrying out terror attacks, including the recent suicide bombing at Quetta Railway Station last week that killed 27 people and injured dozens. (PTI)