Chotu’s killing a great success of security forces

MULTAN:  The killing of Asif Chotu, by the security forces some days ago, is a great success as it has broken the backbone of a defunct outfit -- the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi -- now emerging under his leadership.

Sources said that Asif’s family had disappeared from their house at Lomarrwala near Daira Din Pannah on the Muzafargarh-Layyah Road after the news of his death.The villagers said that Asif had started his work from a Naswar shop owned by Pashtun native Ghulam Muhammad Khan several years ago.

 Later, he set up his grocery shop at Daira Din Pannah Old Bus Stand. After sometime, he stole a costly US-brand pistol of Ghulam Muhammad and escaped to Karachi when police started searching for him.

According to the neighbours, Asif had five brothers and as many sisters. His father Ahmad Khan Baloch was a farmer. Asif had been a criminal since his childhood. His family was not a hardliner but Asif became a militant after he escaped to Karachi. Sources said that LeJ leaders had gathered in Karachi after the killing of Malik Ishaq last year and appointed Asif Choutu alias Dr Rizwan as their chief. Asif was the most wanted sectarian militant in the country.

The Sindh government had fixed Rs3million and the Punjab government Rs1 million bounty on his arrest. Asif had close links with a seminary in Muzaffargarh district and the security agencies arrested its caretaker for interrogations.

The Asif group comprised more than 300 suspects and a majority of them belonged to south Punjab’s remote areas. All of them were highly trained in operating all kinds of weapons. They also got training in Afghanistan.

Sources said that a Jihadi woman, Asifa, radicalised Asif in Karachi. Consequently, he was associated with her Jihadi network. Later, he married Asifa and the couple had four children. Asif developed a network of LeJ sleeper cells in Karachi, consisting of youths belonging to the south Punjab districts. The security agencies had first arrested him from Islamabad in 2005 for sectarian killings in Karachi and Sialkot. He was awarded the death sentence on eight counts. However, he was released from the Rawalpindi Adiala Jail on bail in 2012 when he filed an appeal against his conviction. After his release, he went into hiding.

The Muzaffargarh police had included him in the Fourth Schedule and ordered him to appear before them every Thursday but he disappeared, district police sources said. Asif Chotu was directly involved in killing more than 100 people in Punjab, Sindh, KP and Balochistan. He was also involved indirectly in the killing of more than 200 people.

According to the intelligence statistics, Asif was involved in the attack on Justice Maqbool Baqar and Inspector Raja Saqlain of Rawalpindi. He along with four accomplices killed two Iranian engineers Murtaza and Ali Muhammad, who were working on the Clifton Bridge in 1998. He also murdered PSO Managing Director Shaukat Raza in Clifton and the son of former General Musa Khan at Jamshed Quarters, Karachi.

The Karachi Police had arrested Asif Chotu groups’ member Danish alias Lamba and his cell members, including, Shakeel Burmi, Atif, Waseem Baroodi and Nasir Bahaduri, for plotting assassination of Muttahida Qaumi Movement MPA Manazir Imam and Raza Haider in 2009. He had escaped to Saudi Arabia after the arrest of his key members. He had returned to Pakistan some months ago and was settled in Karachi.