Three RAW suspects remanded in police custody for a week

The administrative judge of anti-terrorism courts on Friday remanded three suspects allegedly belonging to a hostile Indian spy agency and the pro-Altaf Hussain Muttahida Qaumi Movement-London in police custody for a week in cases pertaining to possession of illicit weapons and explosives.

The Karachi police chief on Thursday claimed to have foiled a major potential terrorism plot as they busted a local network of India’s Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) operated by militants affiliated with the MQM-London. The city police chief said there had been reports about RAW’s involvement in terrorism in Karachi, about the MQM-London running the intelligence agency’s local network and about the likelihood of them carrying out a major terror activity in the metropolis at any time.

“We found during our investigations that the MQM-London terrorist who received militancy training in India is the ringleader of the RAW network in Karachi,” Additional Inspector General of Police (Addl IGP) Ghulam Nabi Memon said while addressing a news conference at the Karachi Police Office in Saddar.

“The ringleader had been involved in terrorism here with his MQM-London colleagues on RAW’s instructions. He had been in touch with former APMSO [All Pakistan Muttahida Students Organisation] chairman Mehmood Siddiqui, who has been in India for the past many years on RAW’s payroll, and used to despatch funds through hawala-hundi for carrying out terror activities in Karachi,” he said.

The group had also been keeping in touch with the MQM-London’s notorious terrorist Safdar Baqri in Canada, he added. The Addl IGP said the group had been tasked by RAW to provide funds to different terrorist groups in Karachi for carrying out terror activities, to store bombs and other weapons and supply them to different terrorists, to gather information about the city’s sensitive installations, including those of security and intelligence agencies, and share it with the intelligence agency as well as provide updates on the political situation in the metropolis.

He said the group also used to provide RAW’s special funds to Khalid Shamim, a prime suspect in the Imran Farooq murder case, adding that their bank transactions had been traced. The city police chief said that the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) had been tasked with finding and arresting the suspects, adding that the officials conducted raids in different parts of the city, including Gulistan-e-Jauhar, Federal B Area and Korangi, and arrested Shahid, alias Muttahida, an MQM-London militant heading RAW’s operations in Karachi, and two of his accomplices, namely Majid and Adil Ansari.

Memon said that since the group had been involved in financing terrorism as well as international murder, the government had been asked to form a joint investigation team, adding that a cash reward had also been recommended for the SIU team for saving Karachi from a major terrorism incident.

However, no such contention was made by the police in the court expect the claim that a cache of arms, ammunition and explosives was found in possession of the suspects and they were required to be interrogated. The judge sought a progress report from the police on the next hearing.