Three suspects arrested for smuggling drugs and ammunition

SSP Chaudhry Aslam said that the suspects admitted to being part of an inter-provincial arms smuggling group.

KARACHI:

The Crime Investigation Department’s Anti-Extremism Cell (AEC) claimed to have arrested three weapon smugglers on Monday and found guns, ammunitions and drugs in their possession.

Officials of the cell said that after the department received a tip-off, they intercepted an intercity bus (LSC-256) near Lucky Pahari at the Hub River Road.

The AEC officials found caches of weapons and drugs from the bus, including 30 hand grenades, five Kalashnikovs, 12 repeaters, five pistols, a light machine gun, 160 kilogrammes of hashish and hundreds of bullets. Three men, Islam, Gulzar and Swabi, were arrested for allegedly being involved in the smuggling.

AEC Chief SSP Chaudhry Aslam Khan told The Express Tribune that the suspects, during the initial interrogation, revealed that they belong to the inter-provincial arms smuggling group. According to the suspects, they were provided the weapons and ammunitions by a dealer of arms and drugs, Ahmed, from Turbat, Balochistan.

Khan said that Ahmed had asked them to deliver the goods to an arms and drugs supplier in Karachi, Chacha Ghulam in Yousuf Goth locality of Baldia Town.

Khan said Ahmed’s link with the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army is yet to be verified.

He, however, confirmed that the supplier Ghulam has supplied arms and ammunitions to various outlawed organisations, including Taliban, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and has also supplied drugs to dealers in the city. The suspects have confessed to supplying arms, ammunitions and drugs in the city before, said Khan, adding that an investigation was underway.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 2^nd, 2012.