Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) police on Wednesday announced the arrest of three men suspected of facilitating a suicide attack on a Muharram procession in Muzaffarabad in December 2009.

The attack left at eight people dead and more than 60 injured.

Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Asif Durrani, flanked by Deputy Superintendent (DSP) Raza Gilani and DSP Waleed Gilani, told journalists that the men were suspected of providing accommodation and transportation to the attackers.

The arrests were made from three different places in Muzaffarabad on Tuesday evening, Durrani said.

On Dec 27, 2009, a teenage bomber detonated his suicide jacket as a small Muharram procession from Neelam Valley's Mirpura village passed through a security barrier on a street off CMH Road leading to Imambargah Pir Alam Shah Bukhari.

The head and limbs of the bomber were strewn over a radius of about 18 metres.

Five of those who were killed in the attack were Shia volunteers and the remaining three were policemen.

The men arrested have been identified as Malik Mohammad Ashfaq from Sarriyan district, Muhammad Khaqan Awan from Hattian Bala dictrict and Umer Farooq Shah from Athmuqam district in Neelum Valley.

The officials claimed the men were associated with a proscribed organisation but did not identify the group.

The ASP told the media that Ashfaq, one of those in custody, had moved to North Waziristan with his family following the 2009 suicide attack.

A Joint Investigation Team has been constituted and may reveal more information in the coming days, the ASP said. DSP Waleed added that intelligence officials will also be a part of the JIT.

A long hunt

The police were able to establish links between the arrested suspects and the suicide attack after two years.

The police had arrested an individual, identified as Rizwan of Charoota village near Muzaffarabad, who allegedly confessed that he had facilitated the trio and the bomber.

The bomber and his masterminds had stayed at Rizwan's residence and was an active member of their group, police sources said.

“After receiving important information from him [Rizwan], we had kept a sharp lookout for the trio but their arrests became possible only after they returned to Muzaffarabad, assuming that people would have forgotten the 2009 attack,” Durrani said.

The suspects belonged to the group of Nazirul Islam, alias Shamil Khan, a resident of the Dhirkot sub-division in AJK’s Bagh district. Shamil Khan is also wanted by law enforcers in connection with several acts of terrorism.

However, Durrani said that he could not disclose any more details “lest it might alert the backers and sympathisers of the detained trio.”

According to police sources, after the Lal Masjid incident of 2007, Shamil Khan and Asmatullah Muavia, leader of the Punjabi Taliban, had quit Jaish-e-Muhammad and taken upon themselves to attack law enforcers in revenge.

Shamil Khan later organised activists to launch multiple attacks on army personnel, most of them in the three districts of Poonch division.

On February 2, the police arrested a man identified as Kashif Hanif from the outskirts of Rawalakot who also belonged to the Shamil Khan group.

The suspect, who is named on Schedule Four of the Anti Terrorist Act (ATA), was allegedly involved in at least nine cases registered in five police stations of Poonch division since 2010.