HYDERABAD: A high-value target and undertrial prison, retired Major Haroon Ashiq, was shifted to Rawalpindi via Karachi from the Central Prison Hyderabad amidst tight security.

Prison and police sources said that the UTP was taken to Karachi by a helicopter on Thursday and then shifted to Rawalpindi by a special plane. Two DSPs had arrived from Karachi to take him away.

“Some men from the antiterrorist force with strong physique also accompanied the DSPs when Major Ashiq was flown to Karachi,” said a police source.

The UTP had been kept in the Hyderabad jail’s security ward since April 2016.

“In our record he was a high-value target since April 10, 2016 as he belonged to the [banned outfit] Lashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ). He was kept in the cell with a security level of Ahmed Omer Saeed Sheikh, a convict in US journalist Daniel Pearl’s kidnapping and murder case,” said a prison source.

He was brought to Hyderabad from Karachi in connection with a case registered against him at the Frere police station of Karachi in 2009. The case pertained to the kidnapping of film-maker Satish Anand.

Major Ashiq is to face the case of a senior army officer’s murder pending before an antiterrorism court in Rawalpindi.

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2017