A year on: Police claim all involved in ATI attack traced

Those injured in the attack still wait for federal govt to pay compensation

PESHAWAR: Just over a year since an attack on the Agriculture Training Institute in Peshawar left nine people — including six students, a security guard and two civilians — dead and 30 others injured, police have claimed that they have managed to trace and book almost all those involved in the attack.

Three burqa-clad terrorists, linked with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), had attacked the Agriculture Training Institute (ATI) in the provincial capital on December 1, 2017. The terrorists were carrying modern weaponry including automatic rifles and hand grenades as they stormed the institute early in the morning.

They dashed into a student hostel of the institute, where a video later found in one of the cell phones carried by the terrorists, showed that they went from room to room finding students from far-away districts of the province sleeping.

But as soon as the first call was made on police wireless, police personnel reached the spot and took on the terrorists. A police contingent led by the then Operations SSP Sajjad Khan went inside the compound, taking out all the terrorists and protecting many students and ATI staffers.

Police officials said that the terrorists had arrived at their destination aboard a rickshaw and the vehicle offered them leads to identify those involved in the attack.

The rickshaw led the police to Muhammad Ibrahim, a resident of the Tarangzai area in Charsadda. He was apprehended by the police from the Shah Alam area of Peshawar and his arrest was announced at the end of June 2018.

Officials had said that Ibrahim had bought the stolen rickshaw and then sold it on to the attackers and was employed to dodge investigators.

Police had also arrested a mechanic who had identified the three-wheeler, which was traced to the owner, but the owner had sold the vehicle days before the attack. Subsequently, authorities arrested the dealer who arranged the sale, which ultimately led them to Ibrahim.

Later, they said they had arrested an individual who had filmed the terrorists.

Senior police officials disclosed that the attack had been financed using money generated by kidnapping people for ransom. In one particular case, they said that the militants had picked up a person and released him after his family paid the Rs30million ransom.

“It took us some seven months to conclude the case and arrest almost all those who had financed and facilitated the attack,” said a police official who was aware of the investigations in the case.

The official added that they had also managed to apprehend those who had offered shelter to the terrorists a day before the attack.

Victims await compensation

On the other hand, those who sustained wounds in the attack are still waiting for compensation from the federal government a year on from the attack

The then federal government had announced to provide a million rupees as compensation to the legal heirs of those had lost their lives in the attack, Rs0.5 million for those who had been critically injured and Rs0.2million for those who suffered minor injuries.

The provincial government, though, has already compensated those who lost their lives and those who had been injured in the attack.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 3^rd, 2018.