Unfurling plots: Police stations on the hit list

Apart from banned outfits, local extortionists and drug mafias are also targeting law enforcers.

KARACHI:

Following the attacks on Shah Faisal and Baloch colonies police stations, The Express Tribune has learnt that over a dozen stations in the city are on the hit list of terrorists.

According to police investigators, several outlawed organisations, such as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Jaish-e-Mohammad, have joined hands to target law enforcers, their offices and police stations in Karachi.

On Wednesday night, a man - later identified as Suleman alias Sabir Ali - was throwing explosives inside Shah Faisal Colony police station when the bomb went off and injured him instead. While Suleman escaped, witnesses told the police that the attacker was injured. He was later arrested from a private clinic. Within half an hour, Baloch Colony police station also came under attack with explosives.

Suleman told the police that he belongs to the Haqqani network, but the police have yet to verify his claim. “This [the Haqqani network involvement] was a shock for us too because the Haqqani network has never surfaced in Karachi before,” said a senior investigator. With the help of the information given by Suleman, law enforcers have detained more than half a dozen suspects from Gulistan-e-Jauhar, Orangi and Landhi. They have also seized bomb-making materials and jihadi literature.

However, it is not only the banned outfits that are targeting law enforcers. Crime Investigation Department’s (CID) SP Mazhar Mashwani told The Express Tribune that even extortionists and drug mafias have planned on carrying out attacks against their local police stations. “They [extortionists and mafias] just want to terrorise the policemen in their areas so they can carry out their activities without any fear of law,” he said.



The policemen at stations that have been declared sensitive have been asked to restrict their movements. CID personnel have also been asked to work in coordination with the police intelligence officials posted at police stations to trace and busted terrorists’ networks.

In Karachi, more than 100 policemen have so far been killed in targeted attacks since 2010. Besides targeting the Rangers’ complex in North Nazimabad, the CID’s own complex and several police stations, including Pirabad, Manghopir, Sohrab Goth, Baloch Colony, Shah Faisal Colony, Orangi Town and Shah Latif, have already been attacked. Apart from the stations, CID SSP Chaudhry Aslam’s residence and Malir district SSP Rao Anwar have also been targeted.

To overcome such a situation, there should be an independent counter-terrorism unit that deals only with cases of terrorism, said CID Counter Terrorism and Financial Crime Unit chief SSP Raja Omar Khattab. “This counter-terrorism unit should deal properly with terrorism cases, from the registration of the FIR till the conviction of the terrorists.”



According to Khattab, remote-controlled, cellphone devices and other locally assembled bombs are more dangerous as compared to suicide bombings. “Since the past two years or so, certain groups have starting using bombs assembled with devices that are getting more dangerous by the day,” he said. “Suicide bombers just come once and the blast happens. The devices are more dangerous since they can be timed to go off one after the other and that is when the law enforcers come under attack.”

Khattab warned that the situation will worsen if there is no system in place to deal with such cases from the beginning till the end. Until the police ensure that the culprits are convicted, they will continue to become strong, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 2^nd, 2013.