KARACHI: Four suspected militants belonging to the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, including its Karachi chief, were killed in an encounter in the Musharraf Colony area on Friday.

Speaking at a press conference at the Rangers Headquarters, Colonel Tahir Mehmood of Pakistan Rangers, Sindh said that acting on a tip-off the paramilitary troops and police surrounded a house in Musharraf Colony.

As the law-enforcers closed in, suspects present in the house lobbed grenades and started indiscriminate firing causing injuries to one of the Rangers personnel, he said, adding that the troops returned fire and both sides traded gunfire for around 45 minutes.

When the guns fell silent, law-enforcers entered the house and found four suspects dead. They were identified as Abid alias Muchchar, Khazan Gul, Abdullah and Khasil.

Muchchar and Gul were the chief and the deputy chief of the Karachi chapter of the TTP (Khan Zaman group) respectively, claimed the Rangers officer.

He said that suspect Muchchar was wanted in several cases of terrorism, extortion, kidnapping for ransom, etc. He was involved in 43 targeted killings in the city and his victims included eight policemen, one FC personnel, two activists of the Awami National Party and one worker of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, he said.

“He was also planning to launch a rocket attack on the MQM headquarters, popularly known as Nine Zero, in Karachi to trigger chaos in the provincial capital,” he added.

He said that suspect Muchchar was also involved in a bomb attack on a Rangers mobile van in which four personnel were killed and another bomb attack at the area headquarters in North Nazimabad in which three personnel died. Besides, he was involved in the Abbas Town bomb blast in which 48 people were killed and 100 others wounded.

He had also carried out two bomb attacks on ANP leader Bashir Jan and another on a MQM’s election camp in North Nazimabad during the 2013 general election campaign.

“Abid alias Muchchar used to get protection money from the owners of marble factories in Manghopir,” said Col Mehmood.

He was also involved in kidnapping of three doctors — Dr Ihsan, Dr Jamal and Dr Nasir — in 2013 and released them after taking ransom.

The Rangers official said that suspect Khazan Gul had slaughtered three personnel, besides killing a brother of a police officer Sher Zaman Mehsud and six police informers.

In response to a question, Col Mehmood said that during interrogation of some earlier held members of the same group it was transpired that they were planning to attack the MQM headquarters to create an “atmosphere of terror” in the metropolis.

Answering another question, he said there was “some presence” of the Taliban in the outskirts of Karachi and they were operating in small groups.

“We are aware of it and, God willing, we will wipe them out as those who kill innocent schoolchildren do not deserve to be called humans,” he said.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2014