July 6, 2002	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 24,1423

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PESHAWAR, July 5: A leader of the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi was arrested by the Crime Investigation Department at the nearby Badhber area for his alleged involvement in many sectarian killings.

This was stated by CID Assistant Inspector-General Abdul Majeed Marwat at a press conference here on Friday.

The AIG said that Hafiz Mohammad Ishfaq, a resident of Sheikhupura, was arrested two days back in a house of one of his accomplices, Naseem. He said the accused was a lieutenant of the founder of the group, Riaz Basra. Basra was killed in a police encounter near Multan a few weeks back.

Talking to Dawn, Hafiz Ishfaq denied his involvement in the cases. “I am falsely implicated in all these cases by the police,” Hafiz Ishfaq said and added that the Kalashnikov, which the CID personnel had shown at the press conference as having been recovered from the possession of the accused, did not belong to him.

The AIG said that the militant outfits had shifted their headquarters from Sindh to the Frontier province following the strong security measures taken by the law enforcement agencies in Karachi after the suicide bombing incidents.

“First the militant outfits had established their headquarters in Punjab. Later, they switched over to Sindh and now NWFP is their centre, especially the tribal areas where they can find safe havens to continue their terrorism activities. We do not rule out the involvement of Hafiz Ishfaq in the killing of the AIG of traffic, Peshawar Range, Farooq Haider, and the then secretary-general of the banned Tehrik-i-Jafria Pakistan, Anwar Ali Akhundzada,” the AIG said.

Mr Marwat pointed out that the Punjab police had announced Rs300,000 head-money for the arrest of Hafiz Ishfaq and added that the accused was involved in the killing of 10 members of the Shias community in Sheikhupura.

Hafiz Ishfaq and some of his accomplices, the AIG said, had also killed two police constables in an encounter in March 2001.

The AIG said that the Punjab police had earlier arrested two of the accomplices of Hafiz Ishfaq namely Hafiz Naseem and Abdul Haque. A court had sentenced them both to death. Hafiz Ishfaq was also involved in six other sectarian killing cases, the AIG said.

He said that the accused had links with the then Taliban regime in Afghanistan and lived in Kabul for almost a year. “He had opened a general store in the Shahr-i-Nau locality of Kabul where Riaz Basra and Ajmal Lahori used to visit him,” the AIG said.

the AIG said that the accused had joined the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi in 1988 and contested the 1993 election for the provincial assembly from Sheikhupura on the Sipah-i-Sahaba ticket.

He said the CID had also arrested Sadaqat, a younger brother of Hafiz Ishfaq’s accomplice Naseem. The accused had sent Naseem to Kabul to sell out his store, he added.

The AIG claimed that Naseem’s house was used by Hafiz Ishfaq, Riaz Basra, Ajmal Lahori and other activists of the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi as a transit station for their onward journey to Afghanistan.

He said the CID team had recovered a Kalashnikov, a pistol and two mobile telephone sets from the possession of Hafiz Ishfaq.

The AIG said that the accused would be handed over to the Punjab police within a couple of days.