KARACHI: The Counter-Terrorism Department’s (CTD) Intelligence Wing carried out a raid in Orangi Town, arrested a suspect, Abid Husain, and recovered five bags of ‘commercial explosives’ from his custody, CTD official Raja Umer Khattab said on Tuesday.

He said that the held suspect had been involved in sale/purchase of commercial explosives for a considerable period. “The held suspect had made important disclosures and further action was being taken in light of those disclosures,” a CTD press release said.

The raid was conducted after a recent decision taken in a meeting of Intelligence Coordination Conference (ICC) held in Islamabad.

Mr Khattab in the statement said that the ICC’s 26th annual meeting took place in Islamabad on January 24, which was attended by senior CTD officials of all four provinces, Islamabad, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir. The participants had decided to monitor sale/purchase of commercial explosive material to prevent its misuse for possible terror activities. Subsequently, IGP Sindh gave the task to the CTD.

Therefore, the CTD conducted raids in different parts of the metropolis and collected data of all licence holders involved in business of commercial explosives while action was also taken against those who were unlicensed and involved in illegal sale/purchase of commercial explosives.

The deputy commissioner tended to issue licenses for business of commercial explosives with certain conditions pertaining to safety and certain quantity of the explosives but certain elements stocked commercial explosives in huge quantities and also did not take record of any sale/purchase, the statement said.

During the action, it also transpired that a huge quantity of explosive chemicals and inflammable material was also being brought from other provinces to Karachi and during the transfer of such material, no safety precautions were being taken, it said and added that certain transporters were also involved in that business.

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2024