Four Rangers soldiers, two others injured in Urdu Bazaar shootout

Four Sindh Rangers soldiers and two other people were injured during an exchange of fire between the paramilitary force and suspected militants in the city’s busy Urdu Bazaar on Monday night.

A spokesman for the Rangers said they had raided a building in the Urdu Bazaar locality after receiving information that some militants were holed up in the area. He added that as soon as the suspects spotted the Rangers, they attacked the soldiers’ raiding party with automatic weapons and hand grenades, causing wounds to four personnel of the force.

“The Rangers retaliated and arrested one of the militants, while another confined himself in a room of the building,” said the spokesman. Meanwhile, Preedy SHO Aurangzeb Khattak said that when they received information of some kind of disturbance in Urdu Bazaar, police mobiles rushed to the scene and found the paramilitary force engaged in a gunfight with suspects said to be associated with a banned organisation.

SHO Khattak said the hand grenades hurled by the suspects at a Rangers mobile caused injuries to four soldiers and two other people, who were taken to the Civil Hospital Karachi. He said the Rangers conducted the raid after receiving an intelligence report, according to which some alleged terrorists were holed up near Muqaddas Masjid inside a building on Street No 2 in the Urdu Bazaar locality.

He added that the injured soldiers were identified as Salman Sarif Khan, 30, Inamullah Hasamullah, 28, Waheed Abdul Aziz, 25, and Asif Ghulam Ali, 40, and the others were shopkeeper Faisal Ibrahim, 25, and Kabeer Afsar, 12.

At the time this report was filed, more force was called in and the Rangers, together with the police, were conducting a search operation, while the building was cordoned off by the paramilitary force and the law enforcers were stationed at the outer cordon to provide backup.

AQIS men among 20 held

Earlier in the day, the Sindh Rangers arrested 20 suspects in raids across the city, including militants of banned outfits.

A spokesman for the paramilitary force said the Rangers conducted raids in Jackson and Civil Lines areas where two members of the banned al-Qaeda Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) were apprehended. They are identified as Saeedul Hassan alias China and Syed Umer Aijaz alias Umer alias Maaz alias Masaabh. 

During the preliminary investigation, he said, it came out that the arrested men were involved in carrying out attacks on police and Rangers check points situated in Gulshan and Nazimabad areas.

In a separate raid, a man allegedly affiliated with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-London was nabbed in Hyderi area.

The man, identified as Mohammed Saleem alias Choosani, was allegedly involved in a number of extortion and graffiti cases, the spokesman said, adding that he had been shifted to the Rangers’ headquarter for a probe.  During their raids in Pak Colony and Naziambad areas, Rangers personnel arrested four suspects.

Two of them, Furqan alias Shooter and Abu Bakar, were allegedly involved in target killing and extortion activities, while the two others, Mohammed Ibrahim alias Hyderi and Sikander, were involved in motorcycle theft and cell phone snatching cases, the spokesman said. 

Another suspect, Asif Pathan, was arrested in a raid in Lyari’s Jackson area. The man is said to be a member of the Lyari gang war and involved in heinous crimes. The spokesman said weapons and looted items were found on Pathan and they were later handed over to police for legal proceedings.

The paramilitary force also busted a gang of robbers in Gulshan-e-Iqbal area. Twelve members of the gang were arrested and they were identified as Shahzeb alias Shooni, Sajjad Ali alias Muna, Adam Khan Baloch, Abdul Sattar Baloch, Babar Ali Borhi, Mohammed Asif, Nazeer Ahmed, Waqas Ali, Shahbaz, Danish, Arsalan and Ghulam Murtaza.

The arrested men were allegedly involved in snatching motorcycles, mobile phones and cash from citizens. The gang leader of the group, Ghulam Murtaza, belonged to the Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz.