Rangers operations: In second jab at PAC, Rangers detain Zafar Baloch for five hours

The leader claims that the notorious Arshad Pappu gang is about to re-enter the fray.

KARACHI:

Less than two weeks after Rangers ransacked the house of defunct Peoples Amn Committee (PAC) chief Uzair Baloch’s house, they picked up the committee’s senior member, Zafar Baloch, after a 12-hour security sweep of Lyari only to release him five hours later.

Hundreds of Rangers poured into the Pakistan Peoples Party stronghold in Lyari on Sunday and rounded up dozens of people. The operation began at 5 am and continued late into the evening.

Although over a hundred people were rumoured to have been arrested, an official claimed that there must have been about 20. “In fact, only five or six people are of use to us,” he said, “the rest will be released after questioning.”

Zafar Baloch told The Express Tribune that he was picked up for questioning by Rangers personnel at around 12 pm and taken to one of the Rangers offices in North Nazimabad. “I pleaded with them that I’m on bed rest and can’t move, but they didn’t listen and just took me away,” blustered the annoyed Secretary General of district South PPP.

Baloch had been injured in a grenade attack allegedly at the behest of a rival group led by Akram Baloch. He is practically immobile, even when he appeared at the Karachi Press Club alongside Zulfiqar Mirza, when the fiery Pakistan Peoples Party minister announced his resignation, he used a walker.

Baloch claimed that he was released because he had done nothing wrong and there were no charges against him. “They asked me a few questions and then said I could go,” he said.

A Rangers official was hesitant to call the incident an ‘arrest’ and preferred to say that they detained Baloch for a brief period of time to ask him a few questions.

The law enforcement authority insists that the Lyari operation was a success following the discover of a cache of weapons. However, PAC chief Uzair Baloch and his sidekick Baba Ladla, widely believed to be the main players in the Lyari gang war, remain at large. “Yes, it’s true that they’ve fled the area,” said the law enforcers, “but we’re hopeful that whenever they come back, they will be caught.” It is suspected that the duo is hiding in Balochistan.

For his part, Zafar Baloch doesn’t have a problem with the operations, but fears that the situation in Lyari was changing in favour of his rivals.

He claimed that Akram Baloch was in cahoots with the Arshad Pappu group and would help the group re-join the war.

The Arshad Pappu gang, however, dismissed these claims scornfully. “Zafar is just scared because he knows we’re coming after him and Baba,” a member of the Pappu group told The Express Tribune.

A swoop was conducted in  Surjani Town on Saturday night and conducted an operation in Gul Muhammad Lane in Lyari and Daud Goth in Baldia Town on Sunday.

Residents claim that although the Rangers are not entering each house, entering and leaving the area becomes impossible once it has been cordoned off. Some however, appear to see the ‘greater good’ in the operations and are helping out. “I saw a man in common clothes with a handkerchief over his mouth and wearing sunglasses guiding a Rangers convoy to a house in Singhu Lane,” one of them observed.

Despite the operations, shops in the nearby Khadda Market remained open and paan kiosks also went on with their business.

The Rangers, meanwhile, claimed that the operations were not random and that they were acting on specific information provided by intelligence agencies and informers. “We’re trying our best to not harm the common people of Lyari in any way.”

Published in The Express Tribune, September 26^th,  2011.