KARACHI, Nov 29: The Karachi police claimed to have arrested five suspected militants belonging to proscribed outfit Jundullah on Tuesday.

Speaking at a press conference, Additional Inspector-General of Police Ghulam Shabbir Shaikh said that the suspects arrived in the city from Wazirstan and Punjab aboard Khyber Mail to carry out a terrorist attack in the city.

He said that the Special Investigation Unit carried out a raid within the remit of the Artillery Maidan police station on Tuesday and arrested the five suspects — Syed Kamran alias Waqar, Salar Mohammad alias Khalid, Amjad Khan alias Kargil, Farhan Khan alias Husain and Mohammad Munir alias Azeem.

The police also claimed that maps of the Karachi central prison and an alleged ‘hit list’ were recovered from the suspects.

The city police chief said that the suspects had attacked the police on the city courts premises on July 19, 2010, killed a police constable and got freed their arrested accomplices, who had been involved in the 2009 Ashura bombing on main M.A. Jinnah Road.

He said that the held suspects were involved in many terrorist activities and they were also behind the 2010 twin bomb attacks on a bus carrying mourners and outside the emergency section of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre on the occasion of chehlum of Hazrat Imam Hussain.

Besides, he said, the suspects were also involved in the 2004 attack on the then Karachi corps commander and several bank heists.

He said that the suspects disclosed to the police that one of their accomplices, Fasihur Rehman, had devised a new method to conceal bombs in cement blocks.

The cement bombs were used in the 8th, 9th and 10th Muharram blasts in 2009, he added.

The city police chief informed the media that many members of the Jundullah including Hamza Jofi alias Haji Mumtaz, Ghulam Mustafa alias Ansar Bhai, Arif alias Haider Shuja, Karachi chief Abu Bakar alias Arsalan, Israfel alias Javed, Ajab Khan alias Zakir were killed in drone strikes in Waziristan over the past few years.

Fasihur Rehman alias Hamad, the Karachi chief of the outfit, Mehmood alias Talha, Saqib alias Shahab, Rasheed Khan Pathan, Shakib Farooqi, Murtaza Inyat, Dilawar, Baba, Wazir Mohammad and Ishaq Gul were among those who were still on the run, he added.