Taliban commander Akbar Swati killed in Karachi police encounter

Three other militants also killed in exchange of fire

KARACHI: Four terrorists, including an al Qaeda commander, were killed in a shootout with police in Karachi on Monday night, according to a senior police official.

The shootout took place as a policy party raided a hideout of terrorists in Sachchal Goth neighbourhood of Karachi’s district east, said SSP Rao Anwar, who led the police party.

The SSP confirmed that Karachi-based al Qaeda commander Akbar Swati Commando, alias Mullah, was among the four terrorists killed. He identified one more as Humayun Khan, but didn’t say anything about the identity of two others.

The bodies were shifted to Edhi morgue in Sohrab Goth for identification.

According to the police official, Akbar Commando had telephoned his accomplices and called them to his hideout in an under-construction building. The phone call was traced by an intelligence agency, based on which the police raided the hideout.

When the police raided the compound, the terrorists holed up inside put up a stiff resistance, firing at the police with automatic weapons, he said, adding that in the ensuing gunfight, the four terrorists were killed.

“A huge cache of arms, ammunition and bulletproof jackets was recovered from the hideout,” he said.

The SSP claimed that Akbar Commando had called his accomplices for planning attacks on law-enforcement personnel, particularly the policemen posted on Abul Hassan Isphani Road.

Hours before the deadly gunfight, a traffic police warden had been martyred and another critically injured in targeted shooting on Abul Hassan Isphani Road in what is believed to be the fourth major attack on police in Karachi this year.

The two police wardens were busy controlling the traffic near Disco Bakery when gunmen riding a motorcycle opened fire on them. The traffic wardens received multiple bullet wounds and were driven to a private hospital where one of them succumbed to his injures and the other was said to be in critical condition.

The deceased was identified as Muhammad Khan and injured as Kamran.

Witnesses said the traffic wardens were not wearing bulletproof jackets.

Mobina Town SHO Mairaj Anwar said the targeted shooting could have been part of a series of attacks on police personnel in Karachi. He suspected involvement of banned militant outfits in the attack.

Police investigators said they were also trying to obtain CCTV footage to identify the culprits.

It was the fourth major attack on police in Karachi so far this year.

Last Friday, three policemen were martyred when nearly half a dozen gunmen on three motorcycles targeted a mobile van of Awami Colony police in Korangi.

On June 23, four policemen were martyred in SITE area when gunmen opened fire on them while they were breaking their fast. A pamphlet bearing a message from a militant group Ansar al Sharia Pakistan was found at the crime scene.

Also, Jamaatul Ahrar, a splinter group of the defunct Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), had claimed responsibility for the attack on the police mobile in Dhoraji in May in which two policemen were martyred and another was critically wounded.