KOHAT: Counter Terrorism Department and a federal intelligence agency busted a terrorist network, which was actively planning to carry out a series of high profile major terrorist activities in the district including the bombing of a mosque inside police lines and a Muharram procession, Regional Police Officer Abbas Majeed Marwat told a news conference here.

`They were planning to carry out major terrorist attacks,` said Mr Marwat, flanked by senior CTD and police officers.

He said that the arrest of Siraj and Faridoon, both brothers, serving as constables in CTD and police, had facilitated the network of a terrorist organisation and theirhandlers operating from Afghanistan.

A senior CTD official told Dawn on background basis that initial investigation and interrogation of the accused had led them to unravel a plot to bomb the mosque inside the district police lines that would have caused massive casualties, a re-enactment of a similar bombing in Peshawar which had led to the death of more than a hundred policemen.

He said that the arrest of the accused was made possible due to meticulous work spanning over more than four months, piecing together evidence collected from the ground, watching hours of the CCTV footage, surveillance and collection of electronic data.

`Kohat region was relatively quiet but the killing of a DSP and subsequently the killing of two more policemen caught our attention, he said.

What came as a big surprise was that while the network had affiliation with Hafiz Gulbahadar Group, an organisation that had confined itself to its native North Waziristan but had lately expanded its operation to Khyber and other districts as well, it also had taken oath of allegiance to IS-KP. `We haveevidence that there is overlapping and crossovers of militants,` the official said.

He said that militants used encrypted messaging Apps and used aliases instead of their own names to avoid detection. The mobile data, he said, also revealed the amount of money transferred to them using money transfer Apps commonly used in normal transactions in the country.

`The interrogation that we have had reveals just the tip of the iceberg. The mobile data extraction has helped us a lot in exposing the entire network,` said the official.

He said that the accused had made an elaborate video of the police lines and the mosque and possible point of entrance of suicide bomber.

The group had also planned to bomb the district complex of CTD as well as a Muharram procession.

The group had shared its target with its handlers in Afghanistan which had given it to go-ahead after receiving proof of its ability to carry out such attacks. `We have a pretty good picture of their network,` the official said, adding that efforts were on to capture other members of the group.The involvement of policemen as facilitators led investigators to wonder if militant groups were seeking to infiltrate law enforcement agencies. This was reminiscent of almost a similar case, where a police constable in Peshawar had helped a suicide bomber infiltrate police lines to bomb a mosque.

The constable, Mohammad Wali, was subsequently arrested, who confessed to his involvement besides admitting to killing a Christian priest to prove his usefulness to his handlers in Afghanistan. The case of Mohammad Wali is still pending before the court.

`This is the irony of our system. What we need is a whole of the system response,` a legal expert said. He said that many accused were granted bail, barely days after physical remand and they were back fighting the state and law enforcement agencies.

`This is what happens when you do not interpret the law as it is. The Anti-Terrorist Act is pretty much clear when it comes to granting physical remand of a suspect.

Courts, however, in their own wisdom rely on Criminal Procedure Code. This has complicated the matter beyond words,` he said.