PESHAWAR: The police on Monday claimed that they had arrested an alleged terrorist, who was injured in Hayatabad operation last week.

City police chief Qazi Jamilur Rehman told a presser at the Police Lines Club here that the injured terrorist, Saeed alias Babu, was being quizzed by the CTD.

On last Monday, the police raided a house in the Phase-VII area of Hayatabad in what officials claimed to be an intelligence-based operation.

There followed a gunfight, which lasted more than 17 hours, killing five alleged terrorists and two security personnel.

During a news conference at the Police Lines Club, city police chief Qazi Jamilur Rehman and DIG of the counter-terrorism department Abdul Ghafur Afridi disclosed the background of the Hayatabad operation and details of the investigation into it.

City police chief declares operation intelligence-based

He tried to clear the controversy surrounding the operation as a politician from Bara has demanded judicial probe into it questioning the police’s claims.

Mr Jamil said the alleged terrorist group led by Amjad Ali alias Ajmal, which was involved in the Hayatabad operation, was tracked by intelligence agencies.

He said the prime accused, Amjad, had gone to Afghanistan at least five times before going first to Dubai and then to Greece from where he was deported in Feb this year.

The police chief said Amjad had been instrumental in planning and executing major terrorist attacks in Hayatabad.

He said the forensic analysis of the seized weapons showed that they matched with the bullet casings recovered after the terrorist attack on Peshawar High Court judge Mohammad Ayub Khan Marwat in Feb.

Mr Jamil said alleged terrorist Imran Qari had reached the provincial capital from Afghanistan on March 22 to act as a suicide bomber and lived in the Hayatabad house’s basement.

“It is disturbing to see terrorists reaching here from Afghanistan by legal means i.e. obtaining of visas,” he said.

Mr Jamil said in the past, Afghanistan-based terrorists used to come to Pakistan illegally and secretly.

He said the house was owned by a resident of Swat identified as Abdul Nasir Khan, who

currently lived abroad, and the terrorists used CNICs of other residents to rent the house and obtain a tenancy certification from police.

The police chief said the alleged terrorists rented the house in the name of Javed Afridi with whom they had some issue.

He added that the injured terrorist, Saeed, who used to work at a dairy company, used CNICs of two locals, including Amir and Taj, which they had submitted to him as part of job application as guarantors.

Mr Jamil said the police also seized a drone cam, laptops and mobile phones, which were being analysed by investigators.

He said the accused had rigged a motorcycle with explosives, which was connected with a house booby-trapped basement and when the police used explosive charge on motorcycle, the high-grade explosives brought the entire building crashing down.

Earlier, the police officials played a phone intercept wherein the two alleged terrorists were heard planning an attack and naming local government minister Shahram Khan Tarakai and other PTI leaders as potential targets.

Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2019