RAWALPINDI: Another member of a four-man squad which killed a Dolphin police official during a shootout on Murree Road last month has been gunned down by security forces in the Tank district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa almost two weeks after the Rawalpindi Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) killed his two accomplices in an alleged encounter.

The police had claimed that the suspects were members of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan and on the wanted list of the Rawalpindi police and the CTD. Imran alias Yunus had been on the run after his encounter with the Dolphin police.

The suspects allegedly associated with the banned outfit had been at a private hospital in Rawalpindi for the treatment of one of their accomplices, Naseebullah, who was injured in the Tank district.

They were going back to their native district after getting treatment when they were flagged by the Dolphin personnel on Mall Road near Saddar, resulting in a hot pursuit.

After a chase, the suspects gunned down a Dolphin Force official and injured another, and managed to flee near Committee Chowk in Rawalpindi.

Subsequently, the police managed to round up two suspects – Naseebullah and Ehsanullah – with the help of CCTV footage the next day when they were trying to hitch a ride. According to the police, they had been hiding on the rooftop of an empty house in Bhabra Bazaar. They were handed over to the CTD after arrest. Later, they were killed in an alleged encounter, with the CTD claiming that the suspects had been killed by the firing of their accomplices. Imtiaz, the fourth suspect, who is still at large, was apparently a driver from Tank with no previous record of involvement in any violent activity. He, however, has been termed a “TTP sympathiser” by the police.

At the time, the police sources said the suspects worked for the TTP but they were neither the foot soldiers nor its commanders. They had said that the car in which they were travelling was hired on rent from Dera Ismail Khan, and the vehicle was also moved to the CTD office.

Sources close to the investigation had also revealed that initially the three suspects were affiliated with Tehreek-i-Taliban Afghanistan (TTA) but later joined the banned TTP.

Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2024