KARACHI, Dec 20: Family of Asif Ramzi, a terrorism suspect, visited Edhi morgue on Friday to identify his body but refused to own it.
Ramzi was thought to have been killed, along with three others, when a powerful explosion razed a building to earth in Allahwala Town, sector 31-B, Korangi, on Thursday.
Ramzi’s family saw all the four bodies, recovered from the rubble of the building, and disclosed that none of them was of Asif Ramzi. His wife revealed that Ramzi had met her only a couple of days before the explosion and that he was clean-shaved.
However, she added, all the four dead she saw at the morgue were bearded, according to well-placed police sources.
Two of the four victims, recovered from the rubble, were identified by police as Nadeem Abbas, a constable in the Anti-corruption Establishment and an activist of Sipah-i-Sehaba Pakistan (SSP), and Sarwar alias Zulfiqar alias Zulfi, despite the fact that their bodies were mutilated.
The sources said that the police, who had found the NIC in the name of Babar Sultan at the site of the blast, insisted that Asif Ramzi was among the four dead.
Ramzi was the most wanted in several bomb attacks and sectarian killings. He carried Rs3 million-head money.
Relatives of a missing religious activist, Amir Memon, a resident of Kharadar, are also desperately seeking a glance of the four bodies pretending that one of them might have been of Amir.
“We will send samples of the dead to Lahore for DNA tests, result of which will be matched with the samples of Ramzi’s mother to determine whether any of them was of Asif Ramzi,” the city police chief, Asad Ashraf Malik, told Dawn saying that this was the only way to reach a conclusion.
He contended that Ramzi’s family was puzzled because all the four bodies were badly mutilated and beyond identification. Their refusal to own the body was obvious, he added.
Mr Malik said: “We have persuaded Asif’s mother to cooperate with the police in identifying her son. She would also agree on the DNA testing.”
Senior police officials have indicated that there were ‘substantial clues’ they have found to establish that Asif Ramzi was present at the site when the explosion took place.
The provincial police chief, Syed Kamal Shah, had made the similar claims while talking to Dawn.
Police sources said the police had recovered a mobile phone chip from the site and it had transpired that the user of the component had made threatening calls to a number of police investigators daringly identifying himself as Asif Ramzi.
Mr Malik said that a list of high-ranking officials, an electronic mail address “mostwantedterrorist@yahoo
.com” was also recovered from under the rubble. He said that police were making efforts to break the password and go through the mailbox, containing the address to obtain more information.
He said that a motorcycle, Honda MB-100, found at the site of the explosion, was purchased from a dealer in Akbar Market, who bought it from a man for Rs12,500.
The bike was then sold to Babar Sultan for Rs15,000. As the dealer was taken into custody, shopkeepers of Akbar Market observed a shutter-down strike in protest.
The sources said that police grilled the dealer thoroughly to seek further information about criminals and his links, if any, with terrorists.
Police also picked up Atique Ahmed, owner of a partially damaged Suzuki (KE-0374) which was found at the site of the blast. He appeared to be a friend of Nadeem Abbas who used to borrow the vehicle.
Police claimed that the demolished building was being used by the suspected terrorists to store different sort of chemicals. These chemicals, they added, were meant for preparing explosives.