KARACHI: Senior police officers have urged the government to use ‘diplomatic channels’ to ascertain ‘such places in a neighbouring Muslim state’ where, according to their findings, a number of recently arrested suspected assassins received training and then carried out targeted killings in the city mostly on sectarian grounds, it emerged on Sunday.

A team of CID sleuths recently arrested at least two suspected killers associated with a banned organisation who, it claimed, had killed more than 50 people in Karachi and targeted members of their rival outfit in Quetta as well. More than a dozen other members of the killer gang were still on the run, officials said.

“We have sped up efforts for the arrest of the remaining members of the gang,” said Raja Umer Khattab, who heads the counter-terrorism unit of the Sindh police’s Crime Investigation Department (CID).

“The findings have been forwarded to high-ups who will definitely take up the matter at appropriate forums. We have also suggested exploring all options including diplomatic channels and other possible avenues to ascertain such places in the neighouring Muslim country, where the suspects received training,” he said.

“The objective and agenda must come to fore what really motivated those forces to train our youngsters for creating a war-like situation in the city when the country is in the grip of the worst kind of terrorism of its history apparently because of involvement of several forces,” he added.

Mr Khattab had announced on Saturday the arrests of Jauhar Hussain alias Jaffer alias Rehman and Irshaad Hussain alias Amir alias Hussain, members of a gang run by the banned Sipah-i-Muhammad Pakistan. The suspects, he said, were arrested after a raid in Abbas Town on Friday.

He said that the assassins group was trained and was being financed by the ‘neighbouring Muslim state’ whose name he avoided to take and said the suspects belonged to the city’s well-off families and some of them were from Parachinar.

The suspects’ arrests and the CID’s claims about their background and associations drew a sharp reaction from the Majlis-i-Wahdat-i-Muslimeen (MWM) which accused the law-enforcement agency of targeting Shia youngsters.

“The Shia youngsters are being targeted frequently in the city but the CID and other law-enforcement agencies have not made any arrest on these lines,” said an MWM statement quoting the organisation’s deputy secretary general Allama Anwar Ali, who met families of the arrested suspects on Sunday and then addressed a hurriedly-called meeting of the party’s provincial cabinet.

“After Shia genocide, the MWM will not tolerate any adventurism against Shia youngsters who are being arrested in the name of Karachi operation. They are being implicated in false cases on charges of their being members of banned organisations. It’s sheer injustice as the CID sleuths have not only showed brutality but also violated sanctity of homes while raiding the youngsters’ homes,” he said.

He said that it was the government’s responsibility to track down ‘Israeli agents’ who had turned the country into a terrorists’ badland but it was ‘so unfortunate’ that the authorities were focusing only on cosmetic arrangements instead of launching an operation against the militants.

“The recent CID actions have caused anger in Shia community. We demand the government release all the youngsters who have been arrested on false charges. Otherwise, we will launch a protest campaign from Karachi to Khyber,” added the MWM statement quoting Allama Anwar Ali.

The anti-terror wing of the Sindh police on the other hand appeared totally unfazed by the MWM reaction and stressed the law-enforcement agency was bound to act against terrorism regardless of its ‘apparent name, association and face.’ “The action is not directed against any particular community,” said Mr Khattab.

“We arrest a number of suspects everyday without identifying their colour, religion or beliefs. We are bound to fight terror and will go after every man who is suspected to be involved in this dirty game in any manner,” he said.