KARACHI, Sept 13: The discord between police, the rangers and an intelligence agency has sharpened over the custody of the alleged Al Qaeda activists, whom police arrested after an encounter in Defence Housing Society on Wednesday, Dawn learnt on Friday.
Police had arrested five alleged members of the Al Qaeda, but they were forced to hand over the arrested suspects to the rangers and an intelligence agency.
The Inspector-General of the Sindh Police, Syed Kamal Shah, said on Friday: “The arrested persons are not in police custody, nor police have been associated with the investigation process. The suspects are being interrogated by some other agency as it is a matter related to national interest.”
About the FIR lodged at Defence police station, Mr Shah said: “It cannot be assumed that all persons took part in the encounter with police. Only those who had taken part in the encounter have been booked in the FIR.”
Asked if the FIR was registered only against the dead suspects, he replied in the affirmative, saying they took part in the encounter and a case was registered against them. About those arrested, he said investigations were in progress and case would be registered against them if they were found to have been found involved in crime.
About the family who lived in the apartment, he said the family also was not in the custody of police. However, police were sure that the family was not Pakistani, he added.
The sources claimed that the five suspects were being interrogated by agents of the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The suspects had been lodged at a place somewhere in Defence Housing Society, they maintained.
FBI agents, the sources added, had visited the apartment in the 63-C building in Phase-II Extension, DHA, where they photographed the scene of the encounter, rooms and other things. They also tried to interview shopkeepers and those living in the neighbourhood, who reportedly remained tightlipped. The FBI agents were accompanied by personnel of law-enforcement agencies.
The FBI, the sources said, was sure that the suspects had close links with the Al Qaeda and they could lead to the arrest of more Al Qaeda members in Afghanistan.
The FBI was considering shifting the suspects abroad. High-level talks were under way with the Government of Pakistan in this connection, a reliable source said.
Police launched a swift action to arrest the alleged Al Qaeda men, but after they returned empty-handed as an intelligence agency and rangers took the suspects into their custody, high-ranking police officers issued showcause notices to those police officers who had acted upon information, and now they were facing the wrath of their superiors, the sources said.
Police were the only authority to register FIR and investigate a case. All other law-enforcement agencies could help police in investigation of a case according law, but no other law-enforcement agency could keep suspects in their custody for interrogation or investigation, the sources added.
Police had asked the federal government authorities to stop interference by other law-enforcement agencies in police affairs.
They informed the government that the Sindh police had made efforts in apprehending the suspects, but other law-enforcement agencies were out to take credit for it. Police said hurdles were being created in the way of investigations into the case, the sources said.
The sources said police had been informed by an intelligence agency about the presence of Al Qaeda men in an apartment of C-63 building in Phase-II Extension, DHA. The suspects had been under observation for more than a month. Since the intelligence agency did not have powers to arrest the suspects, they asked police to arrest them.
About the two dead bodies lying in the Edhi’s morgue, the city police chief, Asad Jehangir, said: “No one has turned up so far to identify them, and we don’t know their identity.”
Police also did not know the whereabouts of a woman, her child and husband who lived in the apartment in the DHA. This was the only family who lived in the three-storey building. The woman, her husband and their child were whisked away by the rangers from the spot on Wednesday after the encounter and their whereabouts were still unknown, the sources said.
