KARACHI: A police investigation report submitted to the Sindh home department said that Safoora bus carnage suspects were aware about the ‘hazards’ of mobile phones as they used the voice-over internet protocol (VoIP), causing the government to prepare itself for such challenges which might increase in future, it emerged on Friday.

“The accused persons did not use any mobile SIM for their terrorist activities, they used Talkray, a VoIP software for communication,” said the June 30 report prepared by the police chief and lately submitted to the competent authority.

When officials want the government to invest more in countering the challenges they faced with the emergence of ever-increasing VoIP apps, it is very hard for the authorities to deal with it for both financial and technological deficiencies.

The Sindh government’s proposal to ban internet chat and telephony apps including Skype, WhatsApp, Tango and Viber in 2013 had invited huge criticism from both friends and foes. It was asked to increase its capacity to counter VoIP-related dangers rather than imposing the ban on the technologies.

At least 47 people were killed and 13 others wounded near Safoora Chowk on May 13 when armed men fired at the Shia Ismaili community members travelling in a bus.

In its report, the police claimed that it solved the case within a week and later arrested five ‘terrorists’ involved in the ‘barbaric incident’. The report named them Saad Aziz, Tahir Hussain Minhas, Mohammad Azhar Ishrat, Hafiz Naasir Ahmed and Asad-ur-Rehman.

It said two Kalashnikovs (AK-47 assault rifles) and eight pistols (9mm) with silencers, including the weapons used in the crime, were seized.

The police investigators also impounded the vehicle used in the ‘terrorist act’ and seized their blood-stained clothes. Also, seven laptops containing ‘jihadi’ literature were seized during a raid, said the report.

Involved in 37 cases

It stated that “terrorists confessed to their involvement in 37 cases of terrorism in Karachi and Hyderabad” during their interrogation by a joint investigation team (JIT) comprising members of ‘all law-enforcement agencies and intelligence agencies.

It listed all those cases in which they were involved including the April gun attack on Debra Lobo, a US national and vice principal of the Jinnah Medical and Dental College, the murder of rights and culture activist Sabeen Mehmud, attack on Brig Basit of Pakistan Rangers, several attacks on policemen and Rangers, bank robberies in Hyderabad and Karachi, bomb blast at a Bohra Masjid in the Arambagh area, cracker attack on a Beaconhouse School System branch in North Nazimabad, the murder of Bohra community’s Bashir Saifuddin and several other cases of murder, kidnapping and militant attacks.

Giving incriminating evidence available against the suspects, the report said weapons used in the offence were seized and were matched with the empties found at the place of incident by forensic experts. Four motorcycles and two cars used in the attack have been impounded, the report said.

It added that the weapons and spent bullet casings also matched in 11 other attacks in Karachi.

The report said the printing pattern of literature seized from the possession of the suspects was matching with pamphlets left at the crime scene of the Safoora Goth attack, attack on Dr Lobo and two grenade attacks on private schools.

Apart from using VoIP instead of mobile phones, the suspects used code names and everything that could save them from emerging on the radar of intelligence agencies, the police report said. “All terrorists are highly educated with good financial background and are proficient in using social media network and internet technology,” it stated.

According to the report, only five of the 15-member group ‘active in crimes’ were in the police custody.

The officials also seized six grenades, four mobile phones, 50 SIMs, a police uniform and half-a-kilogram of poison from their possession. The police investigators said every group member kept a sachet of poison in his pocket that they had vowed to use to avoid untoward situations especially their possible arrests.

“Fortunately, we arrested them denying any opportunity to them to use the poison to kill themselves,” said an official.

Published in Dawn, July 18th, 2015

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