Three alleged Al-Qaeda terrorists gunned down in shootout with police

Three alleged terrorists associated with a banned outfit were gunned down in a shootout with the police in the Sohrab Goth area on Monday morning.

District Malir SSP Irfan Ali Bahadur said that acting on the information that some hardcore terrorists were present in the SITE Superhighway police jurisdiction, teams were formed with the police station concerned and a raid was planned in Khuda Bux Goth.

As the teams moved towards the location, they came under fire, following which the police retaliated and, after a brief encounter, arrested three injured suspects, while their accomplices escaped.

The injured were taken to a hospital but they died on the way. The deceased were identified as Al-Qaeda Sindh chief Talat Mehmood, alias Yousuf, Usman Noor Alam and Shaikh Shahid. Their hideout’s search yielded a 10kg prepared suicide jacket, two submachine guns, a pistol, two hand grenades, two remote control circuits, a prepared remote controller, two hand grenade detonator assemblies, two detonators, approximately four metres of detonating wire and safety fuses. The suicide jacket and hand grenades were defused by the Bomb Disposal Squad.

The suspects

SSP Bahadur said Mehmood was also associated with Daesh and his name was in the Red Book, adding that he was a close friend of Safoora Goth carnage mastermind Umar Kathiyo. Mehmood was involved in the martyrdom of several policemen and a jailer in Hyderabad.

The officer said Shahid was involved in the kidnapping and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, for which he was in jail between 2002 and 2006. He possessed the expertise of making bombs and was a close aide of the notorious terrorist Naeem Bukhari, who was already arrested.

The SSP said Alam was involved in the 2013 attack on policemen in Korangi that left four cops martyred. That same year he carried out an attack on an Imambargah by hurling a grenade at it. The officer said their investigations also revealed that the suspects were involved in the killing of four workers of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement in Korangi during 2014.

That same year they martyred a policeman in Zia Colony, and the next year they attacked soldiers of the Sindh Rangers in Orangi Town and martyred four of them. In 2016 they attacked a Military Police vehicle and martyred two soldiers.