LAHORE: Security forces conducted a search operation across different cities of Punjab and apprehended suspects during the raids, military’s public affairs wing Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said.
According to the statement, illegal weapons were also recovered in the operation that was conducted by the Punjab Rangers in collaboration with secret agencies in Attock, Sialkot, Lahore, Kasur, Faisalabad, and Bahawalpur.
A renewed wave of terror attacks has struck the country just a few days before elections, prompting security fears.
On July 20, at least four persons including a child were injured after explosives fitted in a parked motorcycle went off through a remote control on Chaman’s Mall Road.
A deadly blast on July 13 in Mastung claimed at least 149 lives including Balochistan Awami Party leader Siraj Raisani. As campaigning steps up for general elections on July 25, bombings across Pakistan have stoked fears of more violence in the country of 208 million, where political rallies can draw tens of thousands of people.
Until July 5, Pakistan’s election campaign had been relatively peaceful, compared with frequent Pakistani Taliban attacks during the 2013 election, when 170 people were killed, figures from the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies show.
In recent election campaign attacks a bomb targeted a rally of the Awami National Party (ANP) in Peshawar, martyring party candidate Haroon Bilour along with 21 others.
Haroon Bilour’s father, senior ANP leader Bashir Bilour, had himself been killed in a 2012 suicide bombing in the city.
On July 13, another bomb struck the convoy of Akram Durrani, a candidate of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an electoral coalition of religious parties in the northern town of Bannu, killing four people.
