KARACHI, June 29: Two of the nine “most wanted” alleged terrorists, for whose arrest the Sindh government has announced reward of millions of rupees, are already in police custody and their arrests are being kept secret, well-placed sources told Dawn on Saturday.
The Sindh home department announced, through an advertisement, reward of Rs18.5 million for the arrest of nine suspected terrorists who are involved in high-profile cases of bomb blast and killing. All of the nine suspects have officially been shown absconding.
One of the unknown suspects, whose photograph the advertisement carried, turned out to be an engineer working with PIA. After he saw the advertisement he contacted the PIA security personnel, who took him into protective custody, the sources said.
He was taken to the office of the Sindh home secretary, and after an inquiry, he was let off. After he got a clean chit, the number of the most wanted suspects had been reduced to nine.
An official handout issued by the Sindh government said: “A list of ‘most wanted’ persons was released to a section of press. It is regretted that photograph published on June 29 at No 2 of second row of the advertisement was inadvertently included. The individual in the photograph has no link with any other most wanted persons. It has been corrected.”
The inspector-general of the Sindh police said the photograph was published by mistake. Syed Saeed Akhtar is a respectable member of society and a responsible citizen, he added.
About the arrests, the IG said no one whose photographs appeared in the advertisement had been arrested so far.
However, the sources said police arrested Akram alias Lahori, the chief of a banned religious organization, near Water Pump area in Gulberg police limits a day before the bomb attack at the US consulate on June 14. The news of his arrest appeared in a section of the press on June 17, but police denied the arrest. Though Akram Lahori’s name was not on the “most wanted” list, he had been acting as the chief of the banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi after its chief, Riaz Basra, was shot dead in, what police claimed, an encounter, in Punjab in May this year.
The sources said police arrested Akram Lahori along with his five accomplices, whose names were being kept secret. After the arrest of Akram Lahori, a senior member of the Lashkar, Qari Ataur Rahman alias Naeem Bukhari, issued a press statement fearing that Akram might be killed in a “fake” police encounter.
The sources said soon after the arrest of Akram Lahori, the rangers received information about the presence of Ataur Rahman in his hideout and picked him up in Gulistan-i-Jauhar. On a lead provided by him, the rangers also arrested Faisal Bhatti alias Zubair Chishti.
They were later handed over to police for investigation, the sources added. These two suspects were still in the custody of police, but police had been officially denying their arrests.
The sources said since the name of Akram Lahori, wanted in several cases of heinous nature, had not been mentioned in the list issued by the home department, this could lead one to apprehend that Akram Lahori might be killed in a police “encounter” along with his accomplices.
The sources expressed apprehensions that Ataur Rahman alias Naeem Bukhari, allegedly involved in the Daniel Pearl kidnapping and murder case, might also be killed in an “encounter” with police along with Faisal Bhatti, and after their deaths, police would claim the reward money from the Sindh government, which came to Rs6 million, as for each of them Rs3 million reward had been announced.
Police and rangers separately acted upon the information obtained allegedly from Akram Lahori and Ataur Rahman alias Naeem Bukhari and recovered 134 brand-new Kalashnikov rifles, rockets, landmines, explosives, chemicals, and poison-filled capsules, the sources said, adding that police had also picked up the wife and a son of Akram Lahori. It was stated that the wife of Akram Lahori was sister-in-law of Riaz Basra. Akram Lahori was also taken to Punjab and, on a lead he gave to police, police and agents of the FBI raided various places and picked up several suspected terrorists. The fate and whereabouts of those who had been picked up remained unknown, the sources said, adding that some of them might be those whose names were on the list of the ‘most wanted’ issued by the Sindh government.
The FBI and local investigators were still exploring the possibility of the involvement of a third vehicle, which might have been the carrier of explosives in the bomb attack at the US consulate in Karachi, the sources said.
Police have not yet claimed having made any breakthrough in the car bomb attack at the US consulate on June 14. Twelve people were killed and 50 others injured in the bomb attack at the US consulate. Earlier, on May 8, in a car bomb explosion close to Sheraton Hotel 11 French nationals and three Pakistanis were killed.
However, the advertisement mentioned two suspected terrorists for their involvement in the above-mentioned two incidents of terrorism. Naveedul Hasan, for whose arrest a Rs2 million reward had been announced, was wanted in the bomb attack at the US consulate, and Sharib, for whose arrest a Rs1.5 million reward had been announced, was wanted in the bomb attacks at Sheraton and the US consulate, the sources said.