Eight ‘terrorists’ killed in Karachi shootout

Police claim raid was conducted on the information provided by detained terrorists

KARACHI: Eight suspected militants were killed during an alleged exchange of fire with the law enforcement agencies in the outskirts of the city on Monday evening.

The militants were killed during a joint operation by police and the intelligence agencies, after a raid was conducted at the hideout of alleged terrorists near Pipri, Bin Qasim Town, Malir.

The police claim they faced retaliation from the terrorists, when they were surrounding the area. More law enforcers were called at the site and after a shootout that lasted of two hours, eight terrorists were killed.

The suspects’ accomplices managed to flee the scene, said SSP Rao Anwar. Police seized huge cache of explosives, weapons from their possession, police uniforms and suicide jackets from their possession.

The bodies of the militants and the injured police officers were taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for autopsies and medical treatment. Five of the eight terrorists who were gunned down were later identified as Sohail, Khalil, Bilal, Talha and Abdul Salam. Their bodies were shifted to Edhi morgue in Sohrab Goth.

Other militants have yet to be identified. However, SSP Anwar claimed that the killed militants belonged to the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and alQaeda in the Indian Subcontinent.

According the police, these were involved in the targeted killings of three deputy superintends of police (DSPs) in Karachi, while the weapons seized from their possession seemed to be the officials weapons which they snatched from the police officials.

“Our four jawans [cops] were also wounded by the firing of the terrorists,” claimed SSP Anwar. “The raid was conducted on the information provided by Naeem Bukhari and Farooq Bhatti.” The arrests of Naeem Bukhari, LeJ Karachi chief, Sabir Khan alias Munna, the deputy chief of LeJ Karachi chapter and Farooq Bhatti alias Musanna, the deputy of the Afghanistan-based leader of alQaeda in South Asia, were disclosed by the military on February 12.