MULTAN, June 28: A pronounced activist of a banned militant outfit has allegedly been enjoying association with a band of local police officials, who have otherwise got out-of-turn promotions for their ‘achievements’ in tracking down extremist elements in the area.

A source in the police department told Dawn that Ibraheem Madni was rounded up along with four others earlier this month in a kidnapping for ransom case, but his arrest was yet to be brought on record.

It may be added here that some five armed people had kidnapped Dr Zaheer on June 8 last on the Vehari Road when he was on his way home from his clinic. Two of the kidnappers had slipped into his car while the other three followed them for a while by another car up to the motorway link road.

The two cars later departed near Mauza Kotheywal. The doctor and his two kidnappers were going to pass Chauki Balel when a police party spotted them and signalled them to stop. A shootout ensued when the outlaws accelerated.

Later, Dr Zaheer claimed that the kidnappers were holding him at gunpoint, but the police showed no mercy and kept on firing. When a bullet struck him, the kidnappers ran away leaving him in the car. The police allegedly chased and arrested them. They were identified as Ansar and Arshad.

The source said the police asked the arrested outlaws to make calls to their accomplices, who by then must have reached their hideout in New Multan area’s Gulshan market. The three others fell into the police trap. They were identified as Awais, Mujahid and Ibraheem Madni.

Arshad and Ansar were shot dead the same day in an encounter with police while Awais and Mujahid were charge-sheeted in the Dr Zaheer kidnapping case. However, the arrest of Madni has yet to be put on record even after 19 days.

The police source said Madni and Ali Sher, an alleged Al-Qaeda operative recently arrested by the Multan police, were on the list provided by the country’s premier intelligence agency to the police viz-a-viz militants who hailed from Multan and remained engaged in Afghanistan some time back.

Ali Sher, according to information which some of the police officers had given to the media last month before formally announcing his arrest, had received militant training in Kashmir and Afghanistan and later he joined hands with the elements fighting against the armed forces in Waziristan agency.

He was also linked to a tribal facilitator, Abdul Rehman Wazir, of the alleged Al-Qaeda elements in the Waziristan agency. Madni’s name came before Ali Sher’s on the secret list of militants belonging to Multan, the source added.

It is pertinent to mention here that Madni is also a nominated accused in the murder of Dera Muhammadi Union Council Nazim Rana Shamshad. The nazim was gunned down in his office on June 23, 2004, allegedly by Madni and his brother Ali Shan. The latter was sent behind bars while the former has been declared proclaimed offender in the case.

The accused had reportedly suspected that Rana Shamshad was instrumental in a police raid conducted in 2001 by the CIA police at a hotel of Dera Muhammadi. Madni and his companions — Aslam Thakkar and Rao Farman — were arrested in the raid in connection with the rising incidents of motorcycle snatching in the area.

Rao and Thakkar were, later, killed in an encounter while Madni was challaned in a motorcycle theft case. Besides, Madni’s father Ali Sher was murdered in an election-related clash on Oct 10, 2002. His heirs had also suspected that Shamshad might have abetted the murder.

The police source said in February Madni was arrested by the Rahim Yar Khan Saddar police during a foiled dacoity bid. A team of Multan’s Mumtazabad police station stayed for three days in Rahim Yar Khan to arrest him in connection with Rana Shamshad’s murder case, but the police there later denied that he was in their custody.

Deceased Shamshad’s son Rana Imran claimed that he had twice seen Madni in the Chehliak police station, but he was at a loss to understand why the police were not bringing his arrest on record. He feared that the main accused in his father’s murder case would be once again set free by his ‘benefactors’ in the police department.