Kohistan raid: Police arrest key Chilas attack suspect

Operation conducted on a tip-off by another suspect arrested last week.

GILGIT:

Security officials arrested on Thursday a key suspect involved in the murder of Superintendent Police in Chilas town, who was investigating the killings of 10 foreign tourists in Nanga Parbat.

Hameedullah was one of the six suspects identified by police in the murder of Superintendent Police Hilal Ahmed, Colonel Ghulam Mustafa and Captain Ashfaq Aziz in Chilas town last month. The officials were investigating the high profile murder of 10 foreign tourists and their Pakistani guide at base camp of the Nanga Parbat on June 30.

A police official in Chilas, Abdul Qadir said that Hameedullah was apprehended from a house in Kohistan, an area of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa which shares boundaries with G-B’s Diamer valley, bringing the total number of arrests in the case to four.

The suspect was arrested on a tip-off by one of the militants, who was arrested last week for his involvement in the killing of the 10 foreign tourists and their Pakistani guide. Police earlier arrested what they claimed was the mastermind behind the Nanga Parbat incident – Qaribullah alias Hassan, his accomplices Mushtaq alias Commander Ghazi and Mohammad Nabi alias Qari Hasnain from a house in Thak valley of Chilas town.

Hameedullah has been shifted to an undisclosed location for interrogation jointly being conducted by police and the army agencies.

“The search operation is under way and we will arrest the remaining suspects very soon,” said the police official.

To carry out an extensive manhunt in the wake of these killings the administration in Diamer valley had to postpone a polio vaccination drive.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 13^th, 2013.