Pakistan Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed on Thursday said police were close to arresting the culprits responsible for the bomb blast close to proscribed Jamaatud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed’s residence in Lahore, the capital city of Punjab province, that claimed three lives. Twenty four people including a police constable were also injured in the blast in the Johar Town area of the the country’s second largest city.
 
The minister tweeted that officials had achieved "great success" during the investigation process. "Punjab police will soon arrest the suspects and give good news to the people," he said.

In a video shared alongside the tweet, the minister said Pakistan's enemies could not tolerate the economic and political stability in the country under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan and had started adopting "terrorist routes". He said elements who want to spread chaos in the country would fail as Pakistan "will never come under pressure".

"We have completed 86 per cent of fencing work on the Afghanistan border and 46 percent of the work on the border with Iran," he said, adding that fencing of the Afghan border would be completed within the next one-and-a-half month.

Fencing of the Iran border will be completed this year, he said.

On Wednesday, a powerful blast - believed to be from a bomb - near Hafiz Saeed’s residence killed three people including a six year old boy and left 24 others injured.

Six-year-old Abdul Haq, his father Abdul Malik, 50, and a young passerby died in the explosion that left a four-foot-deep and eight-foot-wide crater on the road and damaged several houses and shops nearby.

Citing initial investigations, a senior police official told Dawn on condition of anonymity that about 15 kilogram of explosives had been planted in a car that was stolen from Gujranwala and parked near the residence of Hafiz Saeed in Board of Revenue Housing Society, Johar Town.

His residence remained safe, but many other houses and shops falling in 100 square feet radius of the blast site were damaged.

Eyewitnesses said the blast was so powerful that the residents in the street rushed for shelter, while those indoors locked themselves up fearing an armed terrorist attack.

(SAM)