Rangers plan surgical raids to catch cop killers

Karachi
To bring an end to recent spate of cop killings in Karachi, Rangers will conduct surgical operations in the city and nab the criminals responsible for them.
Rangers Sindh director general Maj Gen Bilal Akbar held a meeting at the paramilitary force’s headquarters with sector commanders and senior police officials on Friday and discussed the issue of the recent gun attacks on policemen.
The Rangers chief directed the paramilitary force to conduct surgical operations and arrest the people responsible for the recent attacks on policemen.
Police say that the evidence gathered so far suggests the involvement of banned outfits in the attacks.
On Thursday, terrorists had gunned down two policemen in Bahadurabad. They were shot at pointblank range in the head.
SSP East Jawed Jiskani said the attack had occurred at around 3:15pm. Head constable Abdul Ghaffar from Larkana and constable Parvaiz Ahmad from Shikarpur were deployed at the Aga Khan Hospital and had went to Bahadurabad Chowrangi for having lunch when they were attacked by two men riding a motorcycle.
The SSP said seven spent bullet shells were found at the crime scene.
The additional IGP Karachi, the SSP East, the SP Gulshan, and the SP Investigation East had visited the crime scene to personally inspect it.
A ballistic examination of the bullet shells revealed that they matched those found at another crime scene where two other policemen, head constable Ghafoor and constable Farooq, were murdered and an FIR No 34/15 was lodged with the Nazimabad police station.
The also matched those found at the crime scene of recruit police constable Shahmir’s murder for which an FIR No 39/15 was registered with the Nazimabad police station.
Besides, similar bullet shells were also found at a crime scene where a member of the Shia community and Pakistan People’s Party activist, Ehsan Danish, was shot dead and for which an FIR No 72/15 was filed with the Aziz Bhatti police station
SSP Jiskani said the evidence showed the involvement of banned religious groups that targeted law-enforcement agencies personnel, government officials and media personnel to a bid to weaken the writ of the state.
He added that police were trying to acquire the CCTV footage of the attack.
Earlier, counter-terrorism department anti-sectarian intelligence chief Khurram Waris had told The News that a nexus of three terrorist organisations - al Qaeda Indian Subcontinent, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi which was now linked with the Middle Eastern terrorist group Daesh, was involved in many terrorist activities in Sindh in the recent past including murdering police officials in Karachi.
He added that AQIS was now leading the other two groups. Militants arrested by the counter-terrorism department in raids conducted in different parts of the province had disclosed during interrogation that the nexus had formed three groups in the province headed by commanders known only by their code names - Umer, Mistry and Bengali – involved in killings and other terrorist activities in Hyderabad and Karachi.
They were responsible for the recent killing traffic policemen in Karachi and also the attack on a bus carrying members of the Ismaili community in the Safoora Goth area of the city.
The leaders of these groups are in Balochistan and instruct their terrorists to attack personnel of the law-enforcement agencies in Karachi.
However, police, Rangers and intelligence agencies they have damaged their network and many of their leaders have either been killed or arrested.
Waris said to avenge the killing and arrest of their leaders and intimidate the law enforcement agencies, terrorists were attacking them with grenades and improvised explosive devices.