Home dept asked to form JIT to grill cop ‘working for RAW

A day after the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) claimed unearthing a network of India’s Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) within the Sindh police and arresting an assistant sub-inspector (ASI) in this connection, the home department was asked on Tuesday to form a joint investigation team (JIT) to interrogate the cop.

The investigators also seek the assistance of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to trace the officer’s transactions because they believe that the group’s other members are still active. A letter by the Karachi police chief reads that the SIU chief through the Criminal Investigation Agency DIG has requested that a JIT be formed to interrogate ASI Shahzad Pervez.

Additional Inspector General of Police (Addl IGP) Ghulam Nabi Memon then requested through the letter that the Sindh Home Department constitute a JIT for a thorough interrogation of the suspect. SIU chief SSP Irfan Bahadur told The News that a JIT was formed for the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-London (MQM-L) militants arrested earlier for their links to RAW, so now another such team is needed to interrogate the ASI.

“We have also asked that the FIA be a part of the JIT to trace his money trail, as we believe that more members of this group being run by Mehmood Siddiqui are still operating in Karachi, and we have to catch them.”

Remand

The administrative judge of anti-terrorism courts remanded the ASI into police custody for carrying on their investigation into the claims that he has ties to RAW and Altaf Hussain’s MQM-L, adds our correspondent.

Bahadur claimed that Pervez had been involved in illegal activities at the behest of RAW and the MQM-L. He said the officer was part of a target killing team of the MQM-L that worked with the spy agency to create unrest in Karachi.

He also said the suspect was handling the funding to the assassins. He added that Pervez was receiving money from Siddiqui, former chairman of the MQM’s All Pakistan Muttahida Students Organisation who now lives in India, through hawala-hundi to fuel terrorist activities in the city.

The SIU chief said the ASI’s involvement was also corroborated by the suspects arrested earlier in a similar case. According to the police, Pervez was arrested in a raid in Gulistan-e-Jauhar, and unlicensed weapons and hand grenades were recovered from him.

Meanwhile, the charge sheet against the other suspects belonging to the same network of RAW and the MQM-L is awaited to be filed in the same court. Suspects Shahid, Majid and Adil Ansari were recently sent into judicial custody after their police remand expired.

Local network

Posted at the investigation wing of the Sharea Faisal police station, ASI Pervez had gone missing a few days ago, but he seemed to have appeared in police custody on Monday. He was reportedly picked up by the SIU and intelligence officials from District East three days ago when he was on his way home from work.

The announcement of the arrest came a little over a month after the city police chief claimed on March 19 to have foiled a major potential terrorism plot as they busted a local network of RAW operated by militants affiliated with the MQM-L.

Addl IGP Memon said there had been reports about RAW’s involvement in terrorism in Karachi, about the MQM-L 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-L terrorist who received militancy training in India is the ringleader of the RAW network in Karachi,” 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-L colleagues on RAW’s instructions. He had been in touch with Siddiqui,” he said. The group had also been keeping in touch with the MQM-L’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 the 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-L militant heading RAW’s operations in Karachi, and two of his accomplices, namely Majid and Adil Ansari.

Memon claimed the raiding party had recovered a huge cache of weapons and ammunition, including hand grenades, mortars and launchers, as well as fuses and electronic detonators.