KARACHI: Police on Tuesday claimed to have arrested four suspected militants for their alleged involvement in the June 8 Karachi airport attack case.

“The Crime Investigation Department police have arrested four suspects belonging to Al Qaeda and the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan who provided logistical support, funds and weapons to the attackers,” said CID chief Saqib Ismail Memon.

Speaking at a press conference at the Civil Lines office of the CID, he said that the held suspects were identified as Sarmad Siddiqi, Nadeem, alias Burger alias Mullah, Asif Zaheer and Master Essa.

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They were arrested in Tariq Road and other localities of the metropolis. They had arranged accommodation in Shah Faisal Colony for the militants who stormed the Terminal 1 of Karachi airport on June 8 this year.

CID official Raja Umer Khattab said that suspect Zaheer was arrested in the 2002 Sheraton bomb blast case in which French technicians working on a submarine project were targeted.

He said he remained in prison for eight years and became a close friend of Ahmed Omar Saeed Shaikh, commonly known as Shaikh Omar, who was convicted of kidnapping and killing US journalist Daniel Pearl.

He said that suspect Zaheer, belonging to Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami, was released from a Hyderabad jail sometime back and then he along with his accomplices allegedly killed jail official Naeem Ghauri at the behest of Shaikh Omar.

The CID official said that Nadeem alias Burger was earlier allegedly involved in robberies. Before joining the outlawed Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan, he was associated with different political parties, he added.

He said that another suspect, Master Essa, was a schoolteacher in Lyari and he was the one who had carried out a recce for the killing of the jail official in Hyderabad.

The fourth suspect, Sarmad Siddiqi, was a resident of Tariq Road and became rich during the last five years allegedly through his dubious activities, he said, adding that he had formed a fake non-governmental organisation in the name of helping the victims of land-grabbing. When such victims approached his NGO for help, the suspect allegedly occupied the same plots/lands with the help of police, as he had “friendship with two or three senior police officers”.

He said he had earned a huge amount of money and had transferred Rs17.5 million to Afghanistan through hundi/hawala network.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2014