Woman claims role in PNS Mehran attack

Sabiha Khatoon’s husband, a suspected senior TTP member, was killed last week.

KARACHI: The police have detained a woman who confessed to her role in major terrorist activities in the city, including the PNS Mehran attack. The woman, Sabiha Khatoon, is the wife of alleged terrorist Qari Shahid Khan, who was killed in an encounter with the police last week.

However, Inspector General of Police Sindh Mushtaq Shah appeared to be playing down the confession saying that a joint investigation team will be formed to question the woman in order to verify her claims.

According to sources, Khatoon was detained when she tried to recover her husband’s body. And during interrogation, she revealed that her husband, was involved in at least four major terror activities.

Khan was allegedly a senior member of the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. He was killed in an encounter in Korangi, when AVCC and CPLC conducted a raid in a bid to recover the abducted industrialist, Riaz Chinoy.

An officer, who wished not to be named, told The Express Tribunethat the woman confessed that she and her husband were involved in the attacks at PNS Base Mehran, CID Civil Line, Karachi University and a police van attack during Chehlum in Malir.

The officer, quoting the suspect, added that five terrorists had arrived in Karachi from Waziristan to attack the PNS Mehran and stayed at her house in Korangi while she monitored the attack with her husband. Ten security personnel and four militants were killed, while two P3-C Orion aircraft were also damaged by the militants in the May 22 attack.

In the CID Civil Line attack, the woman told investigators that two terrorists from Waziristan had also stayed at her house. “The attack was planned at my home and my husband carried it out, I was only cooking food for everyone,” the officer, quoted the woman as saying.

At least 18 security personnel were killed in the attack on the CID Civil Line on November 11, 2010.

Regarding the Chehlum attack, the alleged terrorist’s wife said that her husband had planned to attack law-enforcement agencies on the occasion of Chehlum in Malir.

The woman also confessed to her involvement in the Karachi University blast, which occurred in December last year.

At least six people were wounded in that blast.

Sources have said that the woman also told investigators that she got married to Qari Shahid two years ago in Miramshah, the headquarters of North Waziristan Agency, and has a five-month-old baby. Her two brothers had also been killed in drone attacks in Waziristan.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 15^th, 2011.