PESHAWAR: A suspect who facilitated the 2023 blast at Peshawar Police Lines mosque has been arrested, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Inspector General of Police (IG) Akhtar Hayat Khan Gandapur said on Tuesday.
Addressing a press briefing, IGP KP Gandapur said the suspect, who was identified as police constable Muhammad Wali alia Umar, took Rs200,000 to facilitate an attack on a mosque in Peshawar’s Red Zone area, which claimed 84 lives — mostly police officers.
“We arrested the facilitator along with two suicide jackets from near Jameel Chowk on Peshawar’s Ring Road on Monday,” the IG stated. KP police chief said the cop Muhammad Wali facilitated Qari, the alleged suicide bomber.
The interrogation revealed that the facilitator had connections with a Jamaat-ul-Ahrar commander, whom he met in Afghanistan in 2021 after crossing via Quetta and Chaman border.
“After the blast occurred, he contacted his handler named Junaid and informed him about the success of the operation via Telegram,” he stated.
KP police chief further revealed that the suspect Wali was also involved in other incidents including the target killing of a priest at Peshawar’s Jameel Chowk in Jan 2022.
The suspect earlier this year handed a pistol to a person from Jamaatul Ahrar named Saifullah in Lahore to target a member of the Ahmadiyya community, the KP IG said.
