Doctor, engineer masterminded May attack on ISI HQ

While the engineer, named Asif, from Lahore's prestigious University of Engineering and Technology has been nabbed, the doctor identified as Maaz is still absconding and is believed to be harbouring with Tehrik-e-Taliban militants in South Waziristan, according to a senior Crime Investigation Department officer.

"A doctor named Maaz who passed out from the Faisalabad Medical College a few years ago and Muhammad Asif, a chemical engineer from the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore, masterminded the attack on the ISI building," the officer, who probed the attack, said.

Asif is now in custody while Maaz is absconding and has "probably managed to escape to South Waziristan," he said.

The officer said Asif was also involved in the March 2008 attack on the Federal Investigation Agency office in Lahore that killed 28 people.

Thirty-five people, seven of them ISI officials, were killed when four militants stormed the spy agency's provincial headquarters and detonated an explosives-laden van outside the building on May 27 last year.

"Asif had prepared the van and the four militants came from South Waziristan for a suicide mission," the officer said.

Asif and Maaz were heading a breakaway group of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi that was aligned with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. Asif was arrested in Lahore.
Law enforcement agencies have taken a few of Asif's accomplices into custody from different areas of Punjab province.

They were identified as Samiullah from Nankana Sahib, Imran from Lahore and Zafar from Khanewal.