CTD registers policeman’s target killing case

The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) on Friday registered a case over the alleged targeted killing of a police sub-inspector in the Gulshan-e-Maymar locality in Karachi the previous day.

The martyred police official, Yar Muhammad, was laid to rest on Friday. He was the fourth cop to be targeted in four weeks; however, investigators are yet to trace and arrest the suspects behind the series of targeted killings of police personnel in the city.

An FIR No 114/20 under the Section 302/34 of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act was registered on the request of the martyr’s fellow cop, Ghaus Buksh, against two unidentified armed motorcyclists at the CTD Civil Lines.

The case has taken a new turn after it was revealed that Yar Muhammad was not alone at the time of the incident but Buksh, a police constable, was also accompanying him when the armed motorcyclists gunned down the victim.

Buksh said they were on their way to Taiser Town in Surjani Town for the purpose of an inquiry into a pending case when the firing incident took place. According to the complainant, his duty was with the Gulshan-e-Maymar SHO at a police mobile when he received a phone call from the martyred police officer who asked him to go with him to Taiser Town for a pending case inquiry.

“I immediately went to the police station from where we both left for Taiser Town on a motorcycle,” stated the lone witness of the case in the FIR. “While we were on our way to Taiser Town, one of the two armed men on a motorcycle coming from the opposite side opened fire on us. Resultantly, Yar Muhammad was seriously injured.”

Buksh maintained that after the firing, they both fell down on the road and the suspects fled the scene. He then immediately phoned the police station and informed the police about the incident. The police sub-inspector succumbed to his injuries shortly after the incident.

The complainant claimed that he could identify the suspects as he had seen them. The funeral prayers for the martyred officer were offered at the Police Headquarters, Garden, which were attended by a large number of senior police officers, including Karachi Additional IG Ghulam Nabi Memon.

The Karachi police chief lauded the sacrifices of the police force for the sake of peace of the city. “We will continue to sacrifice our lives for the sake of the city and its citizens,” he said. “The martyrs are the pride of the police department.”

A senior officer of the CTD, Raja Umer Khattab, told The News that the most recent killing of the police officer in Karachi had no apparent similarities with the previous three killings of the policemen in the city.

“In the previous killings, the cops wore police uniforms and the assailants also took the cops’ weapons before fleeing, which suggested that they were trying to gather weapons due to the shortage of arms,” Khattab explained. “But in the latest incident, the police officer was in plainclothes and the killers did not take his weapon away with them.”

Khattab added that the terrorism activities that recently took place in Karachi could be categorised into three types. He said the first category was of major terrorist activities that drew global attention such as the attacks on the Chinese consulate and the Pakistan Stock Exchange.

The second category of terrorism incidents in Karachi, Khattab said, was of the grenade attacks on the Rangers while the third was the series of targeted attacks on policemen.

“In the first type, separatist groups of Balochistan are involved. In the second type of incidents, nationalist parties of Sindh are involved while it is yet to be ascertained who is behind the police killings in Karachi,” Khattab said.

Indian agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) was the mastermind of the attacks carried out by the separatist groups of Sindh and Balochistan and was also funding them, he explained, adding that different groups such as sectarian outfits and Muttahida Qaumi Movement-London could have been behind the killings of cops in Karachi and they had chosen to target the police because they were comparatively a soft target.

Exactly a week after an assistant sub-inspector (ASI) was murdered in the Lines Area neighbourhood, Yar Muhammad became the fourth police official to be martyred in four weeks, casting serious doubts on the efficacy of the investigations into the previous such incidents.

Yar Muhammad, 54, was shot once in the chest near the Northern Bypass. He had been posted at the Gulshan-e-Maymar police station after his transfer from the Model Colony police station around six months ago. He had also worked under former Malir SSP Rao Anwar.