Terrorists and criminals have found new and safer routes to enter our fortified capital. No longer are they entering Islamabad from the conventional routes where police checkposts have cropped up at various points.

Several nullahs pass through various sectors of the federal capital, including the heavily-guarded Red Zone. Besides the rural areas, nullahs and streams provided a safe passage to criminals as well as militants as police vigilance there is next to naught.

The capital police have set up over 60 checkposts in the city and mounted regular patrolling but all their efforts have proved futile to arrest militants.

Apart from auto-thieves, who have been intercepted at various checkposts now and then, no terrorist has ever been apprehended on the regular roads. These checkposts came up after the suicide attack at F-8 Markaz in 2007.

However, the recent discovery of routes along nullahs and streams has made the police think of reviewing their security strategy.

A police officer on the condition of anonymity said it seemed as if the criminals and militants had been using these routes for a long time.

“Criminals managed to escape after striking in the city, and militants easily brought in weapons and explosives from these routes,” the police officer said.

He said preliminarily investigation suggested that it were the scavengers who started using these routes decades back.

“They walked along nullahs and streams, collecting waste floating there,” he added.

Investigations have also shown that criminals had been using scavengers as guides and sources of information to choose houses for robbery and burglary, the officer said.

“However, now these scavengers have started assisting militants to move in the city.”

An exercise was conducted two weeks ago to find out which areas were targeted the most by robbers. It was revealed that outlaws targeted those houses which were either adjacent to a nullah or close to it.

During raids conducted in the last couple of years, the police arrested criminals from the green areas adjacent to nullahs just when they were planning to commit robberies, the police officer said.

These criminals reached their targets by walking along the nullahs and after committing the crime escaping from the same route.

The officer said as many as 50 families living in the city’s Machar Colony near Kural have been reported to have given refuge to criminals from their area.

Robbers coming to Islamabad from other areas stay with their acquaintances in the colony. “They select houses for robbery on the basis of information provided by the scavengers,” he said.

“In view of this information, the police have started interrogating those families living in the colony to arrest criminals, and also intercept those trying to enter the city, he added.A similar exercise is underway to determine the areas in the city frequently targeted by terrorists.

According to the officer, most of the suicide attacks that took place were in areas close to a nullah.

He cited the attacks in Aabpara Market in July 2007, G-6/2 on July 6, 2008, Special Branch in G-7 in March 2009, FC barracks in April 2009, Rescue-15 in June 2009, World Food Programme office in October 2009, International Islamic University in October 2009 and Silk Bank, I-8 Markaz, in June 2011.

Last week, the police failed to trace the whereabouts of two suspects who disappeared into a nullah beneath the heavily-guarded Red Zone.

The nullah passes beneath Parliament Lodges, FBR, Wafaqi Mohtasib, Federal Shariat Court and NAB office. After failing to trace them, the police concluded that they were ordinary scavengers and were collecting waste.

Another police officer told Dawn that no one could step inside the nullah without taking precautionary measures as poisonous gases were produced in the drain and besides it stretched at a distance of half a kilometre.

The Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) personnel failed to enter the nullah without using proper gas masks.

Similarly, four robbers who struck at a house in G-11/3 sector last week escaped through the nullah close-by. However, since the police cordoned off the area on time, the robbers were intercepted and three of them were arrested after an encounter.

The fourth robber, who was injured, escaped to Mehrabadi in G-12 by walking along the nullah, and ended up in a hospital in Rawalpindi from where he was arrested.