KP IGP Moazzam Jah Ansari addresses press conference in Peshawar
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Inspector General of Police (IGP) Moazzam Jah Ansari on Thursday called on the general public and media to avoid conspiracy theories about this week’s suicide bombing at a Peshawar mosque, vowing that law enforcers will avenge “every drop of blood” shed by martyrs.
Addressing a press conference in which he discussed progress in the police’s investigation into the bombing, rebutting conspiracy theories that have found an audience on both social and mainstream media. Urging rumor-mongers not to “provoke his force,” he said conspiracies were spread about the assault to provoke police into protesting. “If they [law enforcers] take the law into their own hands then who would be the law enforcer in the streets?” he said. “My people do not need the protection of anyone because they are the protectors. Some nefarious elements have made this issue controversial. I have conveyed to everyone that your way is not of protest but help in finding the bomber,” he said.
“We want to deliver [justice] to our families and our children. Do not make the bodies of our loved ones a subject of your politics. Kindly end the speculations and let us do our work,” he said, adding that all details of the investigation would be made public once it had been completed.
Police uniform
Sharing updates on the ongoing probe, he said police had determined a network of terrorists was behind the attack. Referring to CCTV footage of the suicide bomber, he said it had shown the suspected bomber wearing a police uniform when he entered the mosque. Justifying the time taken to investigate the bombing, he explained it takes one person 24 hours to scan a day’s worth of footage and 100 people are required to look at all the available cameras.
“I have seen his face in the CCTV and we have crosschecked. He is dressed in a police uniform with a casual jacket. He was wearing a helmet on a motorcycle. We have also traced the bike and we are in the stage of tracing further details,” he said. “We are close to [tracing] the network of terrorists behind the attack,” he added.
“I blame myself for the security lapse,” said Ansari. “My jawans are all my children. They did not stop the bomber as they considered him one of their own because he was in a police uniform,” he said, adding that the bomber had entered the mosque at 12:37 p.m. after asking a police constable about it. The questioning, he said, indicated the attacker was sent by someone else to carry out the attack.
“There’s a complete network behind him. He is not a lone ranger. We will talk with the evidence in hand. We are burning the midnight oil in this investigation and we are exploring every possibility,” he stressed.
Ansari also rubbished questions over the intensity of the explosion. “The explosion was so powerful that the shockwaves did not find ways to escape, hence, forcing the roof of the mosque to collapse,” he said, adding that close to 10-12kg of trinitrotoluene (TNT) was used in the attack. “It took us 26-28 hours to clean up. We could have done cleaning in mere two hours, but our first target was to look for survivors before proceeding to extracting martyrs,” he added.