LEJ Terrorists' Jailbreak: Court grants judicial remand of 12 ‘negligent’ policemen

All 12 policemen arrested for allegedly assisting two Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) terrorists in escaping from prison a day ago were ordered to be kept in judicial custody by a local court on Thursday.

An investigation had revealed that Superintendent Ghulam Murtaza Shaikh, Deputy Superintendent Faheem Memon, Assistant Superintendent Abdur Rehman Shaikh, Assistant Sub Inspector Firosh Muhammad, Nawab Ali, Atta Muhammad, Muhammad Amir, Abdul Ghafoor, Saeed Ahmed and Nadir Ali were involved in helping the two outlaws escape.

The accused cops also moved bail applications for which the court has issued notice to the state attorney to present his arguments. They were produced in the court of Judicial Magistrate (East) Khalid Rajpar by the investigation officer, who is in-charge of the New Town police staton.

Two prisoners, Shaikh Muhammad Mumtaz aka Firoun alias Sher Khan aka Shehzad alias Bhai and Ahmed Khan alias Munna, were detained at the central jail in connection with several cases. They, however, escaped after being produced before a court housed at the Judicial Complex. The two absconders are said to have their connections with the banned LeJ.

DIG Arif Hanif of the East Range told The News on Wednesday that they received a letter from DIG Ashraf of the central prison in the afternoon.

Hanif said the letter was addressed to the New Town SHO, under whose jurisdiction the central jail fell.

The letter asked for registering an FIR of the escape of the LeJ terrorists from the judicial complex of the central prison.

The letter said the prisoners were missing and had been reported to have escaped from the judicial complex situated adjacent of the central jail. “You are requested to lodge an FIR under the relevant sections of law against the inmates and the following officials, as their negligence resulted in the escape.”

DIG Hanif said the police registered an FIR against the officials mentioned in the letter and also arrested them, adding that he would visit the central jail to investigate the incident.

Confirming the arrests, Sindh Prison Inspector General Nusrat Mangan said that according to his initial investigation, the terrorists managed to escape from the judicial complex by cutting the iron bars of the cell holding them.

Mangan said they were grilling the arrested officials who were on duty there to ascertain how the terrorists acquired the cutters, adding that the police were also going through the footage of the CCTV cameras installed at the facility.

Raja Umer Khattab, who heads the Sindh Counter Terrorism Department’s (CTD) Transnational Terrorists Intelligence Group, accused the staff of the central jail of gross negligence.

He said the central prison was a high-security facility so it was impossible for someone to escape from there.

Khattab said the security at the central jail must be reviewed again because the prison housed many hardcore and high-profile terrorists of al Qaeda and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan as well as those involved in the Safoora carnage and other terrorism cases.

He said the escaped terrorist Shaikh Mumtaz worked with the target-killing team of the LeJ’s Naeem Bukhari group, adding that after his arrest he had confessed to his involvement in 65 heinous crimes, including target killings, and was challaned in 32 cases of target killings, including murders of police officials.

The CTD official said the other escaped terrorist Ahmed Khan worked with the LeJ’s Korangi group and was involved in seven cases of target killings.

He said the law enforcers had almost dismantled the LeJ’s network, adding that the escape of the two hardcore terrorists posed another challenge to the authorities.

He feared that Mumtaz might regroup his target-killing team in the near future, but the official made the assurance that the law enforcers were making all-out efforts to arrests the escaped terrorists.