Senior citizen lands in Karachi jail over bomb threat hoax

61-year-old Anees Shahzad has been arrested but his family says the phone must have been hacked

KARACHI: Retired wildlife photographer 61-year-old Anees Shahzad has the distinction of being one of the select few, if there are any others, to have been arrested and booked for allegedly calling in a bomb threat. Though the police do not have a stellar record in tracing prank calls, the law enforcement agency was rather efficient in this particular case.

Within minutes, not only was the call traced but the man in whose name the phone number was registered was also apprehended in a raid at his home in Shah Faisal Colony and taken to the Frere police station, the same place he allegedly claimed was going to be attacked.

The police are sure that this time they nabbed a suspect who has twice in the past created such a nuisance but due to lenience, or perhaps due to other more important pending matters, was let go. The third time is enough and should stand final, no more such jokes will be tolerated, assert the police.



According to South SSP Saqib Memon, more than 70% of the prank calls made to the police helpline were of a non-serious nature but this one was 'intolerable' as it contained a bomb threat.

On the other hand, Anees's family is refuting the police's claims. "What evidence do they have that the call was made by my father?" asked Sami Shahzad, Anees's son. "They just called on our landline and said they were coming to pick us up."

According to a neighbour, Salar Ahmed*, he saw policemen slamming open the door of Anees's house. "It was a flashback to a similar raid conducted predawn in the same street some time back in which some members of a family were taken away and nobody knows what happened to them," he related.

Out of fear that he might be taken away as well if he intervened, Salar chose to remain silent. "I saw them taking Anees bhai away. He was wearing a mustard-coloured kurta and a cervical collar around his neck was also visible. There were three to four police vehicles."



Sami said he was at his office when he received the call from his mother about the incident. "My neighbours who went after my father said he was taken to Shah Faisal police station," he recalled. "I rushed there on my motorcycle with a friend. The police said they just wanted to interrogate my father."

For him, it is hard to believe that his father could do anything like this. "I'm not saying the police are lying but I am saying that my father isn't involved at all. Had he been, why did he wait for the police to arrive? Instead he complained to the police that he had, in a span of minutes, received a dozen calls from the Arambagh police, Rangers, and nearly all the law enforcement agencies," said Sami.

He said his landline phone was dead most of the time and was fixed just a day before the incident. "I have the complaint number with me. I even received a confirmation call of the service completion from [Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited] PTCL. But the police did not listen. Instead, they put my ailing father behind bars and registered an FIR," he lamented.

Was the phone hacked?

Since the landline network in the country does not have ample security or a privacy system and can be intercepted easily by anybody, this contention cannot be simply overlooked, the family maintains. "We have moved an application demanding disconnection of our landline. We don't want this evil box anymore," they say.



A technician with PTCL also told The Express Tribune that the landline can easily be intercepted and used. "The easiest way is putting a kunda [illegal connection] in the wire. Other means of interception can be done through within the telephone exchange and the distribution boxes installed on streets from where the connections go to subscribers," he explained.

No investigation?

The family complains that despite their repeated requests that the case be investigated, the police did not pay any heed and instead registered an FIR under Section 25-D of the Telegraph Act, 1885. "I cannot describe how I felt when a policeman told me that a case was registered against my father," said Sami.

The family says that since the incident, they have been through a difficult time that hopefully no one else should have to face. "It hit us out of the blue. We were to go to perform Umrah next week but now my father is in jail. He has medical problems and I'm astonished that they did not even consider his age," lamented Sami.

"My father has served the government for 40 years as a photographer with the wildlife department and others. He retired a year ago," he sobbed. "The investigation and justice systems in this country are in need of reform. The FIR has been lodged even before an investigation."

On the other hand, the police said they were already done with the investigation as the number belonged to the man who called. "The matter is that Anees's number was used. Therefore, he is responsible. No need for re-investigation," SI Muhammad Idress, who is complainant in the case, maintains.

*Name changed to protect identity