Chakra Goth attack: Police fear Lyari gang war may be seeping into Chakra Goth

Ambush on police officer’s car turns out to be targeted attack on Lyari gangster.

KARACHI:

In a potentially dangerous turn of events, one of the people killed in a shoot-out in Chakra Goth on Monday evening has been identified as one of Lyari’s notorious gangsters.

Police are now looking at the whole incident from a different angle. While initially the target of the drive-by shooting was thought to be a police officer, CID’s sub-inspector Ashiq Khosa, now the attack is being pegged to the Lyari gang war.

The deceased was finally confirmed to be Abdul Hameed alias Mullah Raju after erroneously being reported as a 40-year-old resident of the area named Mukhtiar, then his name was rumoured to be Phulpoto. Finally, police informants identified him as a member of the Rehman Dakait group of Lyari.

His presence at Chakra Goth has set the authorities on edge and alerted them to the possibility that there may be more of his companions lying low in the area. Law enforcement agencies are also linking this discovery to the recent clash between two ethnic groups at Chakra Goth in which a police bus also came under attack and three policemen were killed.

Following the attack, the Rangers and police immediately launched an overnight, door-to-door search operation in the area and over apprehended 50 suspects.

Raju’s criminal records place him among the prime suspects in the Shershah carnage in which 10 people were left dead and several others were wounded. He was also wanted by the police for murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping for ransom, extortion, narcotics and police encounters. The provincial government had offered a Rs300,000 reward for his arrest.

Raju reportedly shifted to Chakra Goth from Lyari some five months ago with his second wife after an internal dispute with his gang over the killing of one of their own members. Recently, however, the issue was resolved and he had moved back to Lyari from where he often visited his wife in Chakra Goth.

Residents said that Raju was sitting at a teashop when he was attacked. His unsuspecting neighbours at Chakra Goth had no idea who he really was as he lived there under a different name - Mukhtiar. His body was received by his widow.

Raju was killed along with a 12-year-old boy in what the police earlier described as an armed attack on the private car of SI Khosa in which his driver was wounded. District East SSP Javed Odho told The Express Tribune that the police have registered a case against unidentified people on the complaint of Khosa’s driver, Mutahir, and have begun investigating. The nature of the incident as described in the FIR, however, was that of an attack on the CID officer.

“It appears that Raju was the real target,” said SSP Odho, “however, it will only become clear once the investigation is complete.”

A second, and more immediate concern for the authorities is the imminent reaction to this killing by Raju’s companions. The main suspects are the Rehman Dakait group’s arch rivals, the Arshad Pappu group. It is believed that Pappu’s brother, Shera, and nephew, Bilal, were behind the killing. This has incited anger among the Dakait group and law enforcement agencies are bracing for a counter attack from them.

CID’s Anti-Extremism Cell SSP Chaudhry Aslam Khan also suspects the involvement of Shera and Bilal and said that his department is also looking into the case and is trying to arrest the people responsible.

Meanwhile, the residents of the Chakra Goth and its surrounding areas protested against the overnight operation and demanded the detained suspects be released. However, police said that most of the suspects were released anyway after they were found uninvolved. A few people remain in custody and are being questioned.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 26^th, 2011.