TTP man ferretted out from Orangi town

SSP Omer Shahid says such militants not involved in planning Karachi attacks.

KARACHI:

The Crime Investigation Department (CID) nabbed a man believed to be a senior commander of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Yousaf alias Qari, who was hiding in Orangi town’s Mominabad area on Wednesday.

The Swati suspect has been accused of being a militant commander responsible for staging a suicide attack on the Mingora Police Training Centre on August 30, 2009 that killed 17 police personnel. According to intelligence and police sources in Swat and Mingora, the original name of the accused commander is Mohammad Yousaf and his father’s name was Sherraye, a resident of Manglawar district, Mingora.

Yousaf is believed to be a close friend of Maulana Shah Dawran, vice ameer of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Swat. Prior to the Swat military operation, 40-year-old Mohammad Yousaf was using his grandfather’s house as the TTP headquarters from where a huge cache of arms were recovered by the authorities. He was one of the most-wanted men in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as well. Before joining the TTP Swat, Mohammad Yousaf used to run a cloth and vehicle bargaining business.

CID’s Anti-Extremism Cell chief SSP Omer Shahid said that several militants from KP have come in the past as well to hide in Karachi. “Around a dozen such militants have been nabbed in Karachi since the start of this year,” he said.

One of the problems that Shahid’s unit initially faced was that when they held such suspects, they didn’t have much background to help. “When we nab the suspects on the basis of our intelligence and informers, we intimate the authorities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and ask them to run a background check on them.”

Yousaf had been wanted for many months. “He was a mastermind of a multiple suicide attack on the FC in Mingora in which several personnel were killed,” said Shahid.

The CID’s Chaudhry Aslam told The Express Tribune that Yousaf had confessed to his involvement in various terrorist activities in Swat, including destroying important government buildings, schools and several check posts.

Interestingly, Shahid said that militants who sought hideouts in Karachi are rarely involved in planning in attacks within the city. He stressed that the two TTP militants who his unit had nabbed a few weeks back along with a teenage suicide bomber, had nothing to do with Yousaf.

Yousaf has been charged under section 13D of the Pakistan Penal Code for possessing an illegal weapon.

Additional reporting Salman Siddiqui.

Published in The Express Tribune November 4th, 2010.