Hitman who murdered more than 100 people arrested: CTD

Sindh’s counter terrorism officials arrested a man from Qasba Colony in the wee hours of Saturday for his involvement in more than 100 murders between the years 2010 and 2012.

SSP Omar Shahid Hamid said Counter Terrorism Department officials faced armed resistance during the raid, but after the ensuing exchange of fire, they caught Imran, alias Mama, while his accomplices escaped.

The accused admitted that he and his now-deceased accomplices Sufiyan, alias Chabi, Faisal Shahzad and Tahir, alias Lamba, were involved in targeting more than 100 policemen and civilians between 2010 and 2012.

“Mama” helped the officials recover weapons from his Qasba Colony hideout, where he and his accomplice Hafeez, alias Fauji, had buried them. Five 12-gauge pump-action rifles, two .303 rifles, an 8mm rifle, a Kalashnikov, four magazines and more than 500 bullets were confiscated.

The accused told his interrogators that his family hailed from Faisalabad but he was born in Lahore, and that after his birth they had moved to Karachi and settled in Nazimabad No 7.

In 2007 he joined a political party on the request of Javed, alias Taili, an area incharge of the party’s Qasba sector. Later, he met with Qasba sector and unit incharges Adil Khan and Qasim and joined their group, and started working on their instructions, including organising processions.

The accused disclosed that an ethnic rift occurred in Karachi in 2010 and he was tasked with target killings, following which he and his accomplices Arif, alias Kala, and Tanveer Pehari targeted a man in the Peerabad police precincts.

After a lawmaker of their party was gunned down the same year, they created riots in Qasba Colony and killed random people the entire night.

“Mama” disclosed that the same year, when the rift between the Pashtun and Urdu-speaking communities was at its peak, they received instructions from the party high-ups to gun down any Pashtun they came across. He and his accomplices targeted several people in the Qasba 2½ locality, most of them Pashtuns, without keeping count how many they had killed or injured.