Pak Punjab police groping in dark over Lahore shrine attacker’s identity

LAHORE - The Punjab police still appears to be groping in the dark over the twin suicide attack on the Hazrat Data Gunj Bukhsh shrine in Lahore, as it has now backtracked from its earlier claim of having identified one of the attackers.

The Punjab police had earlier declared that it has identified one of the attackers of the ghastly terror strike in which 42 people were killed and over 175 injured. It named one Muhammad Rafique alias Usman as one of the attackers who blew himself up near the basement of the shrine.

However, it has now emerged that Rafique, 22, a resident of Barki Hadiara, was actually a regular visitor at the shrine.

According to sources, Rafique’s brother and friends, who were arrested after Thursday’s attack has also been released by the police.

Rafique’s body has been handed over to his family members, The Nation reports.

Rafique’s mutilated head was recovered from the shrine on Friday, and authorities had declared that the body part was that of a suicide bomber.

Earlier, Rafique’s father, Yasin had denied his son’s association in any terror activity and said that he worked at his uncle’s cloth stitching unit in Lahore’s Hurbanspura area.

One of Rafique’s cousins, Shahzad, also rejected the police’ theory and said that Rafique worked under his supervision at the stitching unit and he had never observed anything suspicious about him. (ANI)