FIR of two army men martyred in Karachi lodged

KARACHI: The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) Sindh has registered an FIR of the target killing of two army men, who were shot dead in Saddar on Tuesday afternoon.

Lance Naik Abdul Razzaq and Sepoy Khadim Hussain were targeted near to the Parking Plaza in Saddar within the Brigade police jurisdiction. Police sleuths confirmed to The News on Wednesday that they had collected footage of the brazen attack.

The high-profile case was registered at CTD Police Station under a new standard operating procedure issued by the Sindh government, which says cases of all acts of terrorism, including bomb blasts and target killings of law enforcers, will be registered there.

The double murder case was lodged on the complaint of a Sobedar of the Pakistan Army against unidentified terrorists under Section 302 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) along with Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997

Talking to The News, CTD In-charge Raja Umer Khattab said the terrorists had attacked the soldiers from the left side of the vehicle and at the time of the shooting the windows were closed. Both the personnel had been shot in the head.

He stated that they had also talked to the witnesses and used technical assistance which confirmed that the attackers were two in number, wearing helmets and clad in pants and shirts. Moreover, he said, the attacker used a single weapon with a bag that collected the spent bullet shells.

On a query, Khattab said the availability of CCTV footage could not be ruled out. He added that the terrorists were roaming in the area randomly, and they chased the army men’s official pickup truck after they spotted it.

Officials said the attack appeared to have been carried out by a banned organisation and they were investigating to establish which one it was. Khattab said there was a similarity between Tuesday’s shooting and the one that left two Military Police personnel dead on December 1, 2015, on the MA Jinnah Road. He said it seemed that the same group was involved in the latest attack.

Tuesday’s attack was the fourth of its nature, as earlier a similar attack was carried out on a Preedy Police mobile in which terrorists lobbed a chemical bomb killing three cops. A few months after that, three more policemen were killed at the same place. On December 1, 2015, two soldiers of the Military Police were killed in the Preedy police limits.

After the postmortem examinations of the two soldiers, JPMC Director Seemin Jamali told journalists that one of the personnel, Abdul Razzaq, was brought in dead, while Khadim Hussain died from wounds during treatment.

She said Lance Naik Razzaq received bullet wounds to the head and chest and Sepoy Khadim Hussain suffered bullet wounds to his head, chest and shoulder, which became the cause of their deaths.