Rangers arrest three Tahir Plaza attack suspects

Karachi
The Sindh Rangers on Monday claimed to have arrested three suspects, including a former union council nazim, for their alleged involvement in the Tahir Plaza tragedy which claimed 11 lives in 2008.
On the other hand, the family of a former chairman of Association of Builders and Developers, Babar Chughtai, claimed that he too had been arrested by law-enforcement agencies a couple of days ago in relation with the case.
However, there was no official statement from either the police or Rangers.
Following a clash between two lawyers’ groups outside the city courts on April 9, 2008, as many as 11 people were killed while several others had been injured when violence broke out in parts of the city when armed gun men resorted to firing and arson. The rioters had also torched some 50 vehicles in different parts of the metropolis.
The three suspects arrested by Rangers were identified as Muhammad Ali Qureshi alias Darinda alias Kala alias Kankatta, former union council nazim from Lines Area, Naeem and Shams.
According to the Rangers’ spokesman, the accused revealed during interrogation that they had been the ones to set fire to Tahir Plaza, situated near the city courts, by using flammable material.
Investigators said that following the clash between lawyers’ groups, more than a dozen armed men had entered Tahir Plaza, locked the grilled-gates on each floor of the building which mostly housed offices of lawyers, and used white phosphorus to set it on fire.
The office of Advocate Aftab Abbasi was destroyed and his five clients — Razia Batool and Sobia Shoaib Raza, Basit Mehmood, Danish Akhtar and his brother-in-law Dawar Hussain — had been burnt alive.
The Sharea Faisal police had arrested two suspects, Atiq Siddiqui and Syed Nadeem Zaidi, in 2011 but they were acquitted by the anti-terrorism court due to lack of evidence.

Chughtai’s arrest flayed
The MQM Coordination Committee has strongly condemned the arrest of Babar Chughtai, a former chairman of the Association of Builders and Developers (ABAD), terming it “a flagrant act of vindictiveness”.
In a statement issued on Monday, the committee said maintained that Chughtai was a prominent businessman who has played a vital role in the city’s development. It alleged that law enforcement authorities had arrested Chughtai solely because of his affiliation with the MQM.
The statement questioned whether it was illegal for any businessman to donate money in support of a political party, asserting that several eminent business personalities have been, and still were, doing exactly the same.
The CC members said that Chughtai’s arrest was a message for all businessmen to sever relations with the MQM. They called for the former ABAD chairman’s immediate release and a stop to the “state-sponsored actions against the MQM and its sympathisers”.