LAHORE: The City Raiwind police registered a case on Thursday under multiple charges, including encounter and terrorism, against unidentified militants and began investigation.

Police and intelligence agencies raided a house near Pind Arayian in Riawind late on Wednesday and after a 10-hour encounter killed two people believed to be hardcore militants. The militants had been living there as tenants for last two months.

Police took into custody owner of the house Mian Manzoor, of Kingra Karyal village, and Abdul Sattar, who works in a government hospital as a paramedic and helped Manzoor rent out the property in Firdos Colony to terror suspects.

The suspects did not collect and check the credentials of the tenants while the City Raiwind police also failed to direct the owners of properties to secure and verify the documents of tenants.

The forensic experts of Lahore police spent a couple of hours at the five-marla house to gather necessary evidences.

According to a police official, sophisticated weapons and explosives, including detonators and hand grenades, were seized by security officials who might have also seized cell phones of the deceased.

Punjab police wrap up drawn-out operation in Lahore

He said though the raid was conducted by intelligence agencies initially on specific information about suspects, police were still not in loop about the actual identities of the suspects and their associations.

The official said as the anti terrorism act was inserted in the case, a joint investigation team would be formed to probe the case. He said the body of Sabir Husain, an official of an intelligence agency, was not brought to morgue for autopsy.

Also, two police investigation teams were constituted by the capital city police chief to probe the case.

Adjournment motion

The opposition leader in the Punjab Assembly has submitted an adjournment motion with the assembly secretariat against alleged criminal negligence of the provincial government and its ignorance of the terrorists’ hideout for six months in Raiwind.

Mian Mahmoodur Rashid said the security lapse put the life and property of the general public at stake. He said had the security agencies performed their duties honestly, they would not have allowed the terrorists to camp near the Prime Minister House for a long period of time and the life of a brave Elite Force official would not have lost.

The opposition leader said the chief minister would have to answer how come he was unaware of the activities of terrorists near his own house and why the IGP had gone on a ‘mysterious’ leave.

He said a session of the Punjab Assembly should be called without delay to chalk out a new security plan and review arrangements for foolproof security of the VVIPs. He said suggestions of the MPAs should be given due consideration.

He said the Raiwind incident dented the morale of the police and left a bad impact on their future performance. He said at the moment more than 63,000 proclaimed offenders were roaming freely in the province posing a serious threat to the public. The fact that many of these POs were in contact with the police officials should also be probed.

The opposition leader also submitted a Call Attention Notice against the murder of a person of Baghbanpura by dacoits and an increase in number of dacoities and crime graph in the province.

Published in Dawn, July 18th , 2014