VEHARI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Police in eastern Pakistan said on Tuesday they had arrested four men in connection with an attack on a church last year that killed 17 Christians.
The men were captured in the town of Vehari in Punjab province on Monday night and belonged to banned Islamic militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Iftikhar Ahmed, deputy inspector general of the provincial police, said.
He said three men wanted for the October 28 attack on St. Dominic's Church in the city of Bahawalpur were still on the run, and another was killed in an encounter with police in March.
``We have been after this group of terrorists for quite some time,'' he said. ``We had a fair idea who these people were.''
The officer said he expected the men would be charged within 14 days. He said they were suspected of involvement in other crimes.
Masked men on motorcycles sprayed members of the congregation with automatic gunfire as they gathered at St. Dominic's for a Sunday service.
It was the worst single massacre of Christians in Pakistan's 54-year history and came shortly after President Pervez Musharraf threw in his lot with the U.S. war against terror in neighboring Afghanistan.
That stance has prompted a spate of attacks by militant Islamic groups in Pakistan. They included a grenade attack on a church in the capital Islamabad in March which killed five people, including three foreigners.
The parish priest of St. Dominic's, Father Roccus Patras, said he had met the four men on Monday night and they had confessed to the attack in Bahawalpur.
``They said they were satisfied with what they had done,'' he said. ``They said it was because of the American attack on Afghanistan.
``They said a lot of Muslims were killed there but nobody was taking any steps to protest, so that's why they planned to kill Christians here in Pakistan.''
Christians, Hindus and other religions make up about three percent of Pakistan's 140 million people.