LAHORE, Dec 28: The city police claimed on Thursday to have arrested a notorious proclaimed offender, Aslam Bassa, allegedly involved in murder, extortion and other crime, along with his 13 accomplices, during a late night operation in Gujjarpura area.

Bassa and his accomplices, who had become a symbol of terror in the city and its suburbs, were nominated in 18 cases of heinous crime, including murder, extortion and kidnap. He was wanted by the police since 1997.

The police claimed the arrested accused also confessed to have committed many other incidents of crime during the preliminary interrogation.

The accused, in connivance with another notorious outlaw, Rashid alias Rashu, had killed a number of people for their refusal to give heavy extortion amount, and was still involved in issuing threats to citizens on telephone for the purpose.

In the latest incident, Bassa had allegedly murdered three people and injured as many in Liaqatabad area on Dec 8 for not giving him Rs1 million as extortion money, following which the Supreme Court chief justice, in a suo motu action, had directed the former Punjab IG to arrest Aslam Bassa.

Capital City police chief Additional IG Khawaja Khalid Farooq, flanked by DIG (investigation) Azam Joyia, Civil Lines SP Hussain Habib Imtiaz and Saddar investigation SP Umer Virk, told journalists at a news conference that two special teams led by Civil Lines SP and Saddar investigation SP, respectively, were constituted to finalise the strategy to arrest Bassa. He said the DIGs operation and investigation were directed to review their performance on a daily basis.

He said two special teams had already been constituted under Model Town investigation SP and Model Town CIA DSP to arrest Bassa following the triple murder in Liaqatabad.

The AIG said these teams, in a joint crackdown, arrested Bassa and his accomplices from China Scheme in Gujjarpura area in early hours of Thursday.

Those arrested were identified as Usman Butt alias Bhai, Shahbaz, Mushtaq, Shahbaz Ali, Tanveer Ali, Ghulam Abbas, Liaqat Ali, Mehboob Shahbaz, Rizwan, Muzaffar, Usman, Ramzan and Naseer.

He said the gang allegedly killed 15 people, besides indulging in firing on four occasions during collection of extortion money. The outlaws also snatched 4 cars and were allegedly involved in a kidnap incident, he added.

Besides, the gang was also involved in 150 incidents of cash and cell phone snatching, five incidents of snatching cash from the bank account holders and six armed robberies, he said.