Police were placed on
a high security alert on Sunday and searching for two
suicide-bomber sisters out to launch strikes on government
targets, police said.
Police launched a huge hunt in the city for the two sisters
aged between 18 and 20 years, following the disclosure
by an arrested sectarian militant that they have been
trained for suicide missions, police chief Tariq Jamil
told AFP.
‘There is high alert in the city due to July 4 (US
Independence Day), and though there is no specific threat
we have been alerted by a militant, Gul Hasan, during
interrogation that two of his cousins trained as suicide
bombers will strike any day,’ he said.
Security agencies have raided places in the outskirts
of Karachi searching the two sisters, but so far have
found no trace of them. Police and paramilitary rangers
have been deployed throughout the city while the US consulate,
diplomatic enclave, western missions, foreign fast-food
restaurants and sensitive government sites are tightly
guarded, Jamil said. Jamil confirmed that the US consul
general residence’s official July 4 function has
been postponed.
‘The consulate officials have postponed the function
on their own but we have no reports of any specific threat
nor they have informed us,’ he said.
Gul Hasan, of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, was arrested
in connection with the two suicide bomb attacks on a Shia
mosque in May in 50 people were killed.
Gul Hasan told investigators that he had motivated his
two female cousins to become suicide bombers.
‘My senior members will give them the target, which
could either be a Shia gathering of women, any police
station or any official ceremony,’ Gul Hasan was
quoted as telling his interrogators. ‘We have contacted
their parents, who have confirmed that their daughters
have been missing for the past five or six days, saying
they were going on a noble cause,’ Jamil said.
