Quetta, Apr 16: Police said that two suicide attackers who killed 44 people during a Shiite Muslim procession in this southwestern city last month belonged to the Hezb-Ul Mujahedeen militant group.
The two men hurled grenades and opened fire on the procession March 2, the day of Ashoura when Islam's Shiites mark the death of a revered 7th century leader. The attackers then detonated grenades and explosives strapped to their bodies.
A Hezb-Ul Mujahedeen official denied the group was involved in the attack.
Rehmatullah Niazi, a police investigator, said the two attackers were Abdul Nabi and Hidayatullah Mengal from Qalat, a town about 150 km south of Quetta, capital of Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan Province.
"Families of the two men said they belonged to Hezb-Ul Mujahedeen, but they had been out of contact with them for the last six months,'' Niazi said. Salim Hashmi, spokesman for Hezb-Ul Mujahedeen, said it was ``baseless'' to link his group with the massacre.
``It is impossible that anyone involved in sectarian violence could be associated with Hezb-Ul Mujahedeen,'' Hashmi said.
Bureau Report