Qaribullah alias Hassan is the main accused identified by security officials in the Nanga Parbat incident in which 10 foreign trekkers and their local guide were brutally killed on June 22. PHOTO: REUTERS/FILE
Police have arrested the alleged ‘mastermind’ of the Nanga Parbat massacre and his alleged accomplice in Chilas town on Thursday.
“Both of them were arrested after the police received a tip-off,” a senior Chilas police official said on the condition of anonymity.
Qaribullah alias Hassan is the main accused identified by security officials in the Nanga Parbat incident in which 10 foreign trekkers and their local guide were brutally killed on June 22.
The arrest came a month after security forces, led by the army, launched a full-scale search operation in the valleys of Diamer. In Chilas, the army had imposed an unannounced curfew before entering houses to search and arrest suspects.
Chilas Superintendent Police Jahangir Khan led a team that arrested Qaribullah as well as an alleged accomplice, Mohammad Nabi alias Qari Hasnain, from a house in Thak valley, 130 kilometres from Gilgit. “It was a sudden raid and hence, there was no resistance, no exchange of fire as the men were unarmed,” he said. Qaribullah and Nabi have also been accused of killing three investigating officers – Colonel Ghulam Mustafa, Captain Ashfaq and SP Diamer Hilal Ahmed – who were looking into both the Nanga Parbat carnage and the attack on passenger buses in Lulusar last year. All of them were shot dead last month.
“Qaribullah is a member of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan,” confirmed Mohammad Naveed, a senior police official in Diamer.
In one of the most shocking attack on foreigners, terrorists wearing police uniforms had stormed a base camp at the foot of the Nanga Parbat, the country’s second highest peak, and killed the trekkers and the local guide. The victims included an American with US and Chinese citizenship, three Ukrainians, two Chinese, two Slovakians, one Lithuanian and one Nepalese.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack and said that it had set up a new faction, Junood ul-Hafsa, to kill foreigners in order to avenge US drone strikes on Taliban and Al-Qaeda operatives in the northwest of the country.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 6th, 2013.
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1730886375-0/Untitled-design-(46)1730886375-0-270x192.webp "pm shehbaz inaugurates model village for flood hit gb residents")
TTP had already demanded release of 5000 Taliban;perhaps even these people
Please arrange a meeting with a firing squad quickly before the next jailbreak happens
Once again our LEAs prove that they are capable of some extraordinary investigative work. Good work! Now let's hope a very strong case is put together and the courts have the courage to convict these barbarians.
Now hopefully these suspects will be brought to justice and be punished according to the laws of the land after being found guilty.Good job done by the investigating officers and let the courts take over.