Late SP Chaudhry Aslam Khan. PHOTO: PPI
KARACHI: Investigation into the assassination of SP Chaudhry Aslam Khan on Monday revealed that the attackers had a second vehicle with explosives as backup, Express News reported.
Aslam and his two guards were killed on January 9 when a suspected suicide bomber – later identified as Naeemullah – drove an explosives-laden vehicle into his car on Lyari Expressway, in Karachi’s Essa Nagri neighbourhood.
Investigation officers said the assailants had brought two vehicles to the blast site to ensure the target was achieved.
Eyewitnesses said they had seen two vans at the toll booth on the expressway.
SSP CID Niaz Khoso said the investigation officers were waiting for the report on DNA samples collected from the crime scene and that around 15 people are under investigation.
Daredevil cop
Muhammad Aslam Khan, commonly known as Chaudhry Aslam, inspired fear and awe almost everywhere he went.
Usually spotted in his trademark crisp white shalwar kameez with his buttons undone and an unkempt beard, he was known for wearing flashy watches, carrying his Glock 9mm pistol in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
Known as the Sultan Rahi of Sindh police, it is a poignant that he died on the same day that Rahi did.
Attack
A little before 4:40pm, Aslam got on to the Lyari Expressway with two police mobile units trailing behind him. Within minutes, a powerful blast struck Essa Nagri, rocking several other neighbourhoods in the city.
A thick pall of smoke hung over the sky, in open testimony to the destruction wrought scores of feet below. Rumours swirled that among the fatalities was CID’s Aslam, one of three men who died in the attack. Eleven others were injured.
At the time of the blast, Aslam was on his way back to work from home.
When the police got to the blast site, Aslam’s bulletproof black Vigo lay 40 feet away from the blast site, which is the other side of the expressway. The other two men in his vehicle – his driver and gunmen – also died on the spot. One chunk of the expressway’s boundary wall was blown off due to the intensity of the blast. The surface of the expressway’s ramp now has cracks running down the middle.
The policemen who had been following Aslam in the police mobile units fell over the expressway and are reportedly injured. Volunteers found body parts of the injured and dead in the bushes of the Shah Muhammad Suleman graveyard – under the expressway.
Aslam’s men said that his face and chest were damaged in the blast while the bodies of his companions were mutilated.
COMMENTS (15)
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The miscreants must have some insider information to time the attack with so much precision. Seems like they had intimate knowledge of his route, schedule and the fact that he was not in a bomb proof vehicle but a bullet proof one only. It seems like a repeat of the attack on Naval base Mehran in Karachi which could have not been done without double cross agents.
As per the Investigatios so far it is being assumed that there were two explosive laden vehicles for the target and that as per the eye witness information, the vehicle never moved towards the target as the vehicles was resting on the jack and its wheel dismantled.
The whereabout of the second explosive laden vehicle were not known and even if it was on the express way no one noticed it going off road through any of the exits.
If the second vehicle really escaped from the vicinity, then the law enforcement agencies should have gone on high alert on snap checkings.
The escaping vehicle means more chances of other targets in queue !!!.
Its quite fair to investigate as to : who had called him from the office? Why there was the second call ?
We know that the cellphone of Shaheed Ch. Aslam was also detroyed BUT the data is always available with the cellular company.
Could the investigators, also review the call data of all the cell phones used by the members of the squad abd besides this, the entire office staff cellphone data to be scrutinized both before and immediately after the caal were made to Ch. Aslam Shaheed.
@hasan: If you read newspapers then you must know that any numbers of taalibaans captured or killed happen in Sindh, do you have figures of other provinces please???? esp KPK?????
Missing mustafa kamal who had installed cctv cameras throughout the city but no one cared of neither cameras nor mustafa kamal
Do not waste time. No one cares their were two blast or three blast he is dead that's the main thing. Baby bhutto should ask his pathetic Sindh government to catch the culprits rather than palying blame games on twitter.
So where is the 2nd vehicle now? Did it also blast or is it STILL roaming in the streets of Karachi waiting for some other target?
@Sandhi Maa: you are absolutely right he was a Greet Warrior.
@Sarmad: Other van was on back up it did not explode as it went off from scene when saw the Death of greatest warrior of Karachi!
There was only one blast heard...hows that possible that there were 2 vehicles laden with explosives and we heard only one? I have started feeling that they are trying to hide something which they aren't able to...and its that it was an inside job...
So are they telling us that after the first attack took place the attackers in the second vehicle were traveling around the city with their explosives laden vehicles?
And to get to the place where the blast took place these 2 vehicles must have crossed the Essa Nagri toll booth and none of the staff there ever noticed anything suspicious?