Posted on 09/14/2002 11:45:58 PM PDT by HAL9000
KARACHI—Mystery shrouded about the identity of two terrorists killed and five arrested after a successful encounter between the terrorists and police in Defence Phase-II Karachi on Wednesday. The police and rangers had so far failed to ascertain the motives of the terrorists, their nationalities and the route through which they arrived in Karachi. Police and rangers had also failed to establish or identify their connections in Karachi or elsewhere in Pakistan so far.On the contrary police and rangers were found fighting with each other to take credit for the success of operation in which two terrorists were killed and five were arrested. Though the police had killed and arrested the terrorists, rangers allegedly snatched the custody of the alive terrorists from the police and removed them to unknown destination, as claimed by the police.
However, during investigation of Pakistan Observer it was established that out of the two deceased, one was from Tajikistan and the other from Syria, while out of the five arrested two were Tajiks and two Syrians, one was Pakistani. One of the terrorists could not yet be identified while the others were identified as Mohammed Yameen, Saifullah, Abdullah and Hamza. The woman who lived with the terrorists was identified as Gul Bibi. Her nationality had also been kept secret by the law enforcement agencies.
Though no details of the recovery of contraband items was disclosed, it was gathered that after the operation, police seized 27 hand grenades, six KK rifles, 20 kg explosive and some live cartriges from the flat.
The details of the story were that at about 3 am, on a secret report of some intelligence agencies DSP Saddar, Rana Shafiq, reached Defence Phase-II and cordoned off the MAQ Complex which was commonly known as Pathan Flats. During deployment, the police party took two suspected persons into custody who were standing outside the building. Sensing the danger, the accomplices of the two arrested persons, residing in the flat with a woman and a female child, tried to escape and threw hand grenades to terrorise the cops. Since the number of cops was very small, the DSP sent SOS message to high officials. On receipt of the SOS from DSP Saddar, ASP Civil Lines Imran and SP Security (Operation) Ghulam Mohammded Dogar rushed to the place along with heavy contingents of police and started deploying cops to launch operation. Both the officers were trained commandoes, after deployment of police force around the flat, Dogar issued warning on megaphone and ordered to leave women and children who had been made hostage by the terrorists. When the order remained unheeded, SP Dogar ordered to fire tear gas shells. As soon as some tear gas shells lobbed inside the flat, a woman with a girl came out and requested for protection. She was the accomplice of the terrorists living in the flat.
After taking full information from the woman, about the number of persons present in the flat, police launched massive firing operation. During this operation hand granades were thrown from the flat accompanied by gunfire. This exchange of firing continued from 9.30 am till 2.30 pm, the cops deployed around the flat managed to enter into the flat and found three alive and two dead. Police recovered 27 live hand granades, six KK rifles, 20 kg explosives and a large quantity of live cartriges from the flat which were seized. The dead bodies were sent to hospital for post-mortem while the arrested persons were brought down.
Among those arrested alive, one is Pakistani Urdu speaking, two Tajiks and two Syrians. The names were Mohammed Yameen, Saifullah, Abdullah, Hamza and an unknown Arab citizen. The two deceased were identified as Syrian and Tajik. Police were tight-lipped to disclose the details of the dead and arrested terrorists and motive of their presence in posh locality.
Police officials said when the successful operation ended, a heavy contingent of rangers arrived and snatched the custody of the arrested five terrorists and whisked them away to unknown destination.
However, the investigation branch of the Karachi capital police had launched investigation of the case registered in Defence police station and raided the estate agency, through which the terrorists obtained flat on rent. During the raid, the owner of estate agency, Faisal Qureshi, was found missing.
The investigators said that according to initial information, Gul Bibi, along with a female child was living in the flat with seven persons including one Pakistani young man. The relationship between the woman and the persons killed and arrested could not yet be ascertained.
They obtained the flat on rent only two months back. The residents of the locality said that the flat was treated as centre of activities of Pathans. Under the guise of Pathans, Afghans, Arabs, Syrians and some other nationals lived temporarily and left after handing over the flat to others of their gangs or groups.
According to police sources, the CCPO Asad Jahangir Khan was himself supervising the investigation and issuing directives to the DIG Operation Tariq Jameel and DIG investigation Fayyaz Leghari. All the officers were found tight-lipped about the progress of the investigation and details about the dead and arrested accused. They neither confirmed nor refused that the gang comprised foreign nationals. They said the line of investigation which had so far been drawn was to determine whether the terrorists belong to Al-Qaeda or RAW.
When contacted it was told that the rangers and police had sent their reports claiming about the success of operation against terrorists to the Interior Ministry. The Rangers Director General, and the Inspector General of Sindh Police, in their reports had claimed that the operation was conducted by their agencies without the help of others, while police had claimed that it had taken video films of the whole operation and entire success goes to the police.
It had been learnt that on receipt of conflicting claims of the operation from two law enforcement agencies, the Interior Minister, General (Retd) Moinuddin Haider had decided to rush to Karachi to ascertain the facts.
Meanwhile, the Inspector General of Police had through an announcement promoted all the cops and officers to higher ranks and awarded commendation certificates for their successful operation.
Despite all these, police avoided to register case of terrorism and simply registered a case of attempt to murder, taking people as hostages, and possessing illegal arms and ammunition.
...and to be sure to get in on the reward $$$$$.
Pakistan has a much more rigorous process for selecting top leaders than does the US. Most of our bozos would be dead before they got 10% of the way there.
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