Police fail to arrest 649 absconders in terrorism cases

CTD yet to apprehend 92 suspects in bomb attacks, other acts

LAHORE: Punjab Police have failed to arrest at least 649 absconders booked under the anti-terrorism law.

The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) is also yet to arrest 92 suspects nominated in cases of bomb attacks and other terrorist activities.

The largest number of accused who are yet to be arrested is from Dera Ghazi Khan, at 127, followed by Gujranwala with 116 and Faisalabad with 107.

Lahore police have to arrest 83 such accused persons, Bahawalpur 45, Sheikhupura 38, Rawalpindi 15 and Multan 11.

The data compiled on December 31, 2019, shows that police arrested only 15 accused persons during the preceding month.

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As per the data compiled by November 31, 2019, there were 664 proclaimed offenders booked on charges of terrorism. The CTD had arrested only one person from the list of 93 accused persons till the date.

Lahore Police, like many other districts, failed to make even a single arrest during December.  The number of wanted accused was 83 on November 31, and remained the same on December 31.

Sheikhupura police made only one arrest as the figure was 39 in November and decreased to 38 in December. Gujranwala police made seven arrests during the period as the number was 123 in November that decreased to 116 in December.

Faisalabad police arrested three accused during the period, reducing the number of absconding accused from 110 in November to 107 in December. Sahiwal Police did not make any progress during the period as the number of wanted suspects in the district remained three.

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Rawalpindi and Sargodha police also failed to arrest any absconding terror suspect during December.

Multan police arrested only one such accused during the month as the number dropped from 12 to 11.  DG Khan police arrested two as the number of absconders dropped from 129 to 127. Bahawalpur police also did not make any arrest among the list of absconders.

The data also revealed that 418 of the accused persons did not have any property registered in their names. They included 65 accused persons in Lahore, 29 in Sheikhupura, 90 in Gujranwala, 95 in DG Khan and the rest in other districts.

Efforts were made to contact Punjab Additional IG Operations Inam Ghani for comments on the issue but he did not respond.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 5^th, 2020.