Ghas Mandi attack: A month on, police still dead on the money with gambling den owners

Police official says there is no hint that TTP men carried out the attack.

KARACHI:

A month after the attack on The Birch Club in Lyari, the police seem unwilling to take any action against the ‘underworld’ men who are running it.

On April 21, a powerful bomb placed inside the gambling den killed 19 men and injured nearly 40 people. Investigation reports hinted that several police officers are helping in running the den, but little effort has been made to find out who these officials are, The Express Tribune learnt.

Crime dons

The Birch Club is located at Zahid Arcade, a densely populated neighbourhood in the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) stronghold. A signboard hanging outside the den claims the club was registered in ‘1953-53 under the Act XX of 1860’. The faces of slain PPP leaders, Benazir and Zulfikar Bhutto, beatificially beam down from posters nearby.

Everyone in the neighbourhood knows who the owners are. They have been running the den without a hitch for decades. Haji Ramzan Baloch and his son, Umar Baloch, are believed to be the owners but the den is operated by a man named, Aijaz Memon, who officials said is the real mastermind.

A senior official refuted claims that the police have been unable to arrest Aijaz and Umar because they were out of the country, probably in Dubai. “Aijaz is here in Karachi and I spoke to him just the other day,” he said.

According to the police, Aijaz was the one who came up with the novel idea of centralising the whole business of gambling in Karachi, which also made the system of making monthly payments to senior officials more organised.

“With the backing of the police and senior political party officials, Aijaz and his goons shut down the gambling dens of all other operators in the city and now everything is conducted only through him,” the police official said. This set-up made it simpler for all the relevant people to get their share of the loot.

In order to make sure he did not ruffle any feathers, Aijaz made weekly and monthly payments to the highest and the lowest ranking officials of the police and even political parties. A particular police officer in Gadap Town was, until recently, receiving Rs100,000 every day from Aijaz.

According to the officer, the sole duty of Inspector Waseem, who used to sit in the control room of The Birch Club, was to liaise with the gamblers and organise the cuts to be handed over to other police officials.

When asked why Aijaz was not being nabbed despite everyone in the force knowing where he is, the officer said, “From a terrorism point of view, catching Aijaz is not the priority,” he said, before going on to add with a smile that, “You know why”.

Residents fear that the club would soon be reopened again but Napier police SHO Chaudhry Shahid Mahmood assured that this is not happening. “I challenge anyone who says it has reopened to come with me and we’ll carry out a raid together,” he said. Mahmood was sure that it is next to impossible for The Birch Club to ever reopen now.

Taliban attack?

The Crime Investigation Department, in the presence of Sindh IG Fayyaz Leghari, had announced only a week after the incident that a new group, alMukhtar, had carried out the attack.

Al Mukhtar’s alleged leader Mustafa Rehman Aurakzai alias Yaqoob Commando, son of Syed Rehman Aurakzai, was declared arrested in a raid on the Super Highway and was believed to have a cell in Karachi, backed by Taliban militants in Waziristan.

However, an SSP told The Express Tribune that there is no history or even a hint that Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan militants carried out attacks on gambling dens. “I checked the records of all known gambling den operators in the city for the last one year and found out that, although there have been incidents of target killings of some gamblers, they have never been harassed by militants,” he said.

Also, if the TTP had indeed orchestrated the attack, it certainly didn’t claim responsibility for it. They have not even made any statement that gambling dens in Karachi, like the music CD shops in Peshawar, were on their hit list.

“This is in no way an ideological attack by the Taliban on gambling dens. Basically, it is a fight within the organised crime syndicate,” he said. The officer insisted, however, that the suspect Mustafa Rehman has a criminal record and was involved in numerous cases. “Basically he was hired to plant the bomb on behalf of a party that had asked for extortion.”

Inquiry

The Sindh IG was repeatedly approached to explain why he failed to mention the names of Aijaz or Haji Ramzan during his press conference in which he announced the capture of ‘al Mukhtar’ group. He refused to comment.

Capital City Police Officer Saud Mirza said that no one is untouchable and appropriate action would be taken against all culprits. He said that Inspector Waseem has already been suspended. When asked whether all police officials who are suspected of benefiting from the racket would be unmasked, he said that, “an inquiry committee is in place and will affix responsibility”.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 2^nd, 2011.