The five alleged terrorists blew themselves up with suicide jackets to avoid arrest after their Suzuk hi-roof van was intercepted by a police patrol at Sea View on Wednesday night. Two policemen were killed.
The group was believed to have been headed to the Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine. Investigators suspect they are linked with the outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, part of the al Qaeda and Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan nexus.
Two of them were later identified as Shoaibur Rehman and Atiq Bengali, however, the other three remain unidentified. Investigators are trying to trace Atiq’s family and to identify the remaining suspects, said an official speaking on condition of anonymity. Initial investigations suggest that Shoaib and Atiq were not suicide bombers themselves but provided logistical support.
Shoaib lived in SITE and his father was a plumber at Jamia Binoria, SITE. His family, neighbours and even the two madrassas in Karachi distanced themselves from Shoaib because of the crowd he associated with. He has apparently been linked to terrorist outfits for the three to four years.
Shoaib’s neighbours claim that, after discovering his links with terrorist organisations, his father, Abdul Rehman, disowned him. “His father disowned him in 2009 after he would spend months away from home and mixed with jihadi boys,” said Shoaib’s neighbour who did not want to be named for fear of arrest. “After that, he often came home to meet his mother.” Shoaib was enrolled at Jamia Binoria and another madrassa in Korangi but was expelled from both.
Jamia Binoria media coordinator Maulana Saifullah Rabbani confirmed that Shoaib had attended the seminary but was removed in 2009. “We expelled him because he kept company with jihadi boys who were involved with jihadi wall chalkings,” he explained. “The seminary is no longer linked with him in any way.”
Shoaib’s father, Abdul Rehman, and uncle, Wali, are in custody as investigators are trying to derive possible leads from them. However, officials denied having detained them.
“This is all untrue, we never arrested or detained them,” said Crime Investigation Department (CID) SP Mazhar Mashwani who is heading one of the three teams looking into the incident. “We did not force them in anyway, they volunteered to help us.”
Published in The Express Tribune, November 22nd, 2011.
COMMENTS (14)
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Were these CIA / Mossad / RAW agents?
@abdullah aftab: Columbia massacre happened and that individual was a student of the same school where it happend... school didnt disowned him and people still study in the school. no one blamed the hi school at all. it was an act of an individual. And these things been happening around the world in period of time...
We can see the word "Jihadi" repeated again & again in this article, why dont people realize that Jihadi means a striver or struggler not a terrorist , so those boys he used accompnay should be called So called Jihaids , but not Jihadis.
Who are these 'Jihadi Boys' that all these people seem to know about but are so impossible to hunt down and taken care of properly, you know, once and for all?
@abdullah Aftab @parvez wow. If a school kicked out a terrorist because of his activities then it would have been called correct but if a madressa does the same, they are labelled as supporters of terrorist. What Double standards !!
@ Aftab
How sad, as soon as we hear Madrassa, we start pointing fingers. Have we ever mentioned the institutes of so many other criminals? We never do....
Here we see Madrassah and his family have disowned him, yet no one misses a chance to blame Madrassahs..pity...
@Abdullah Aftab,
I thought you only read what you want to.
It is stated that he was "kicked out" of the madrassa due to his activities and did never graduate from there. Now I dont need to say that any reasonable institution (university or madrassa) would do the same.
but since you are on your campaign against madrassas (and against something bigger) you will only read what you want.
.....and still we do nothing about the Madrasses and their sponsors.
@Abdullah Aftab, have you ever been to Jamia Binoria ? Please do some homework before commenting on something which you don't know of
Joke of the century.
“This is all untrue, we never arrested or detained them,” said Crime Investigation Department (CID) SP Mazhar Mashwani who is heading one of the three teams looking into the incident. “We did not force them in anyway, they volunteered to help us.” Knowing the techniques deployed by our Police, who volunteeers ..................?
@Syed - If there are other low level Madrassas as per your theory and they are causing embarasment then why do these main stream Madrassas do not dis own them publicly and help govt getting rid of them. Till the time we keep fighting Saudi/Iran proxy war in this country no one else will be at loss except us. Neither faiths will change or one sect will be able to eliminate the other.
This was another tragic event. For the past few months the terrorist activities slowed down in Pakistan, lets hope this is not a fresh wave of terrorist attacks. This will only further dent Pakistans economy.
@ Abdullah aftab,
Five fingers are never the same, Jamia Binoria has a a very good record. Mainstream madrasas all have very good record of this. Its those Madrassas which are run on low level by illiterate people create problem.
what a surprise!! The terrorist got his initial eduction from a madrassa.Of course they'll disown him now before the media.