KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Monday briefed the Sindh Assembly regarding the attack at the shrine of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan last month that claimed nearly 100 lives and left hundreds other injured. He said despite payment of dues, the power supply at the shrine was cut off.
The chief minister informed the house that police deployment at the shrine on the night of attack was insufficient and claimed that a “VVIP” had taken police personnel deployed in the area with him about half an hour before the attack took place.
“I don’t want to spell out… who had taken police personnel with him about half an hour earlier ” Murad said before the house.
Refusing to take names, the chief minister only specified that the person he was referring to was not a politician, as he added “I don’t want to blame anybody”.
Murad said they did not had any “specific” security threat for Sehwan and conceded that the provincial authorities should have been extra vigilant after the blast at the Shah Noorani shrine in Balochistan’s Khuzdar district last year that claimed 52 lives.
He said the functionality of CCTV cameras at the shrine was hampered by loadshedding “which I am not responsible for”.
Because the cameras were being run on generators, he said, their resolution was affected. “Due to low voltage from the generators, the CCTV footage had turned black and white from colour.”
“Despite that, we have identified the suicide bomber after examining the footage from the same cameras,” he maintained.
