Rangers arrest five ‘terrorists’ from city’s outskirts

Detainees include suspected militants associated with AQIS and Daesh

The Sindh Rangers claimed on Wednesday that they had arrested five terrorists associated with militant organisations during a targeted operation in the outskirts of Karachi.

Chairing a media briefing at the paramilitary force's Jinnah Courts headquarters, Col Qaiser said they had received credible information that militants belonging to Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and the Islamic State (also known by its Arabic acronym 'Daesh'), had entered Karachi with plans for a major attack.

He said the Rangers expanded their intelligence network and then conducted a raid in Keamari Town's Mawach Goth in the wee hours of Wednesday. After a brief exchange of gunfire, the force arrested five men with weapons and explosives, he added.

He underlined the invaluable assistance of the citizens of Karachi in the ongoing operation against criminals, and said the people were financially rewarded as ordered by the Rangers Sindh chief Mohammad Saeed.

Col Qaiser confirmed to the media that the detainees were associated with AQIS and Daesh, were trained in Afghanistan, had links with foreign spy agencies NDS (the Afghan National Directorate of Security) and RAW (the Indian Research & Analysis Wing), and had entered Karachi via Balochistan.

They used an SD memory card for communicating with one another, and their confiscated laptop contains 3D images and maps of important installations, hate literature as well as letters confirming their association with other terrorists organisations, added the Rangers official.

He said the other confiscated items included eight kilograms of explosives, a suicide jacket, four hand grenades, four ball bombs, four kilograms of ball bearings, 20 metres of detonating cord with three detonators, four sub-machine guns with 50 bullets and two pistols with 15 bullets.

The arrested suspects

Col Qaiser said the detained men were identified as Tahir Zaman (alias Faisal Moota Boxer), Mohammad Nawaz, Bilal Ahmad (alias Kashif, alias Javed), Mohammad Farhan Siddiqui and Dur Mohammad Mushadi.

Zaman was trained in Afghanistan during 2013 and also at the AQIS headquarters in the Miranshah border area.

On January 26, 2013, he and his associates targeted two policemen near Korangi's Vita Chowrangi. Later, onSeptember 28, he and his associates hurled a grenade at a police mobile near Korangi's Bilal Chowrangi, killing two policemen and injuring another. Zaman had also targeted two activists of a political party, Hassan and Sunny, earlier the same year.

Nawaz joined AQIS in 2012 and was later trained in militancy, which included making improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

He used to relay information on police, army and intelligence personnel to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. He also medically facilitated notorious terrorist Javed Swati after he was injured in a 2015 attack that left two Rangers soldiers dead.

Ahmad is a close associate of Tahir Minhas (alias Saeen) – mastermind of the Safoora bus attack, now in detention – and was trained to carry out a suicide attack. On the orders of Minhas, Ahmad killed eight people, including members of the Bohra community, and people from the Ahle Hadees community.

Ahmad was also responsible for the 2012 IED attack outside a mall that injured four to five people.

Siddiqui joined AQIS in 2008 and was trained during the same year. AQIS Pakistan chief Ustad Ahmad Farooq assigned him the task of recruiting youngsters for the organisation.

Mushadi also joined AQIS in 2008. The next year, the police arrested him while he was transporting weapons from Sukkur to Karachi. He was released on bail in 2014, following which he returned to AQIS and got involved in terrorism again.