March 12, 2002	Tuesday	Zilhaj 27, 1422

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BAHAWALPUR, March 11: Shakil Anwar alias Zahid alias Mustafa of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, who carried a Rs1.3 million bounty on his head, was killed on Monday in a ‘shootout’ with the police.

Bahawalpur SSP Sikandar Hayat told a press conference here that the deceased was involved in several terrorist attacks and high profile murders. These, he said, included the massacre in St Dominican Church in October 2001, attack on Khana-i-Farhang-i-Iran, Multan, and former minister of state Siddique Kanjoo’s murder.

The SSP said Inspector Naveed Ikram had led the CIA party that intercepted the white pick-up Hasilpur-Chakkiwala road at around midnight. He said Shakil Anwar had fired at the police but was injured in the exchange of fire. He later died from the injuries at the Khairpur Tamewali Tehsil Headquarters Hospital. He said Nazim Shahid Durrani, the CIA SP, had supervised the operation.

None of the policemen was injured in the firing. A Kalashnikov rifle, a .31 bore pistol and 14 fake number plates were recovered from his the white pick-up (LXW-2364) which he said had been snatched from a United Nations agency.

He said Shakil Anwar, son of Muhammad Sharif, caste Arain, a resident of Mohallah Diggi of Fort Abbas in Bahawalnagar district, had been an associate of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi’s Riaz Basra and Malik Ishaque. He said an accomplice, Qari Allah Wasaya, had disclosed and Kashif, held for Siddique Kanjoo’s murder, had confirmed Shakil’s role in the attacks. The fax message claiming responsibility for the church attack, he said, had been in Shakil’s handwriting. This, he said, had been established by comparing it with a letter he had written to Malik Ishaque.

The SSP said the deceased was also involved in the following crimes: murder of Gujranwala SSP Ashraf Marth, murder of nine people in Khairpur Tamewali in a single attack, killing of former MPA Muhammad Aslam Joya and Azhar Joya in Lodhran, murder of Inspector Sajjad Haider Zaidi in Bahawalpur, murder of Mazhar Husain Khameni in Chishtian, murder of Advocate Mumtazul Hasan in Haroonabad, murder of Sibtain Raza and Baqar Zaidi in Multan, a Shia shopkeeper’s murder in Khairpur, a robbery in Ahmadpur East in which Rs8.1 million were taken away and a man was killed.

The deceased, the SSP said, had snatched a number of vehicles including a double-cabin pick up from near Shorkot.

The body has been shifted to Bahawal Victoria Hospital.