KARACHI, Aug 12: A suspected killer and extortionist, shown in police record as murdered last year, was arrested in a Gulistan-i-Jauhar locality on Sunday, officials said.

They added that the suspect, Ayaz Khan alias KK, son of Taj Mohammad, was involved in the targeted killing of a pilot of the chief minister’s helicopter, retired major Iqbal Kashmiri, and a school teacher besides money extortion activities.

The police said that in an attempt to claim life insurance money of around Rs11 million, Ayaz had faked his own death and obtained a death certificate.

Acting on a tip-off, the police on Sunday raided a hideout in Pehlawan Goth and arrested him, said DSP Qamar Ahmad of the DIG (east) special operation team.

The police believed that the suspect was a close associate of former Awami National Party leader Liaquat Bangash, who died reportedly after jumping from the fourth floor of a building while trying to escape arrest during a raid by Rangers in Gulistan-i-Jauhar in June.

During interrogation, Ayaz alias KK told the police that he faked his own death so that his family would get insurance money. He said his mother with his friends filed an application at the Gulshan-i-Maymar police station reporting that he had gone missing.

Later, he said, an unidentified body was found within the remit of the Pak Colony police station on Jan 16, 2011. After medico-legal formalities, the body was shifted to the Edhi morgue for want of identification. His mother went to the mortuary and identified the victim as her son, he told the interrogators.

They buried the body and fixed a gravestone mentioning his name, DSP Ahmad quoted him as saying.

The officer said that the family then lodged an FIR (27/2011) at the Pak Colony police station of the murder of Ayaz under Section 302 (premeditated murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code. Subsequently, he said, the family obtained a death certificate and filed a claim with the insurance company.

The claim was in process and was likely to be settled soon, the DSP said, adding that the death certificate as well as the police record mentioning him dead benefited the suspect in that he killed at least two persons afterwards.

Ayaz alias KK was booked in a case (FIR 230/2009) registered at the Airport police station pertaining to the snatching of three sub-machine guns belonging to intelligence officials.

The police said that during the course of interrogation, Ayaz confessed to killing Mudassir Iqbal Kashmiri, a retired officer of the army’s aviation wing, who flew the chief minister’s helicopter, in a targeted attack near Rabia City when the latter was returning home in Gulistan-i-Jauhar in his car from the airport in January last year.

Also, the police said, he was nominated in a case (FIR 427/2011) at the Gulistan-i-Jauhar police station for the killing of a school teacher on April 13, last year.

According to the officials, he confessed to killing the teacher while she was returning from her school. He was quoted as saying that he was accompanied by Liaquat Bangash and Akram Mama when he shot at her. The police said Ayaz killed her because she did not respond to his love.

Both the killings were carried out in Gulistan-i-Jauhar following the reported death of the suspect, Ayaz, said DSP Ahmad.

Besides, he was involved in several money extortion cases.