Supply chain: CID nabs smugglers 'supplying' arms to LeJ

Seized weapons sent to experts to determine their origin.

KARACHI: The Sindh Police's Crime Investigation Department (CID) nabbed two key members of a countrywide network of arms smugglers from one of their hideouts near Hub Chowk on the outskirts of the city on Saturday.

CID SSP Fayyaz Khan's team received a tipoff that the smugglers were hiding near the Hub River road. "After an encounter", the team apprehended two suspects - Fareed Khan, who hails from Swat and Mir Sood, son of Dilsawar, from Mardan.
A huge quantity of arms and explosives, including 319 dynamite sticks, 1,900 detonators, 232 metres of detonator cords, two TT pistols and a stash of ammunition, were seized from their possession.

According to the police, the suspects have confessed to supplying arms and explosives to banned organisations, such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) since 2007.

Khan told The Express Tribune that there are many criminals associated with this network supplying weapons and explosives to various banned outfits in the country. "They don't care if the buyer is a terrorist organisation like the Taliban or the LeJ. Anyone who is ready to pay them a good amount of money is game for them."

One of the key suspects at large is Chaudhry Riaz, who hails from Lahore. The suspects have told the police that Riaz used to arrange trucks loaded with weapons from the network's various warehouses spread across the country. These trucks would bring the weapons to Karachi's Gulbai area for distribution.

Khan said apart from Riaz, the police was keeping a lookout for Gul Saeed, Dur Khan and Ahmed, who are allegedly running the network from Kohistan, Swat. Rajab Ali, a suspected member of the so-called Sindh Liberation Army, is allegedly overseeing operations in rural Sindh while Nazeer Baloch is suspected of supervising Balochistan operations from Quetta. A suspected Taliban militant, Khasta Zameer, is also allegedly linked with this ring of smugglers.

When asked about the origin of the explosives devices seized in the raid, Khan said that they have sent samples to an expert to determine where exactly they were made. "Most of the arms and explosives usually come from Afghanistan but there have also been numerous instances when we've found the material to have been made in our own country's ordnance factories at Wah, Punjab."

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2011.