Suicide bombers for sale in Pakistan

By Naveen Kumar

Suicide bombers are available for a price in Pakistan to settle personal scores, a police investigation into the killing of a parliamentarian has revealed.

On Tuesday, the crimes investigation department of the Lahore police said it had arrested five people involved in the August 6 suicide attack at the residence of Rashid Akbar Niwani, a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) member of the national assembly, which resulted in the death of 26 people and injuries to several more.

Niwani was only playing the honest broker between two friends who had fallen out over a monetary dispute, the police said.

Quoting the police, Dawn reported Wednesday that principal suspect Waqas Hussain and his accomplices Nazar Hussain, Arif Khan, Muhammad Amjad and Saeed Amjad Abbas hired a suicide bomber and explosives expert from Wana town in the restive South Waziristan to kill a man named Ejaz Hussain, with whom he had a monetary dispute.

Waqas Hussain and Ejaz Hussain were one-time fast friends. Waqas started a used-car business after borrowing Rs 2.1 million from Ejaz but could not establish himself and began to suffer losses. He handed over seven vehicles to Ejaz at different times to return the borrowed money, but Ejaz demanded another Rs 5.4 million, the police said.

A dispute developed and both had cases registered against each other.

Ejaz finally took the dispute to Niwani and asked him to settle it. Niwani called both parties to his outhouse in the presence of local notables, listened to them and announced another sitting for August 6.

"Waqas and his father Nazar Hussain went to their relative Arif Khan in Dera Ismail Khan (in the adjacent North West Frontier Province) and informed him about the situation. They decided to kill Ejaz in a suicide attack and Arif asked them to arrange money for the purpose," Dawn said.

Waqas, Nazar and Arif then went to Tank, also in the North West Frontier Province, where they met Wana resident Jaan Muhammad Wazeer and agreed to pay him Rs 1.2 million for the killing.

A day before the August 6 suicide attack, Jaan handed over the suicide bomber and an explosives expert to Arif. The bomber and explosives expert were later handed over to Waqas.

On the day of incident, Waqas confirmed that Ejaz was present at Niwani's house and took the suicide bomber there. The bomber blew himself up near Ejaz, killing him, Niwani and 24 others.