From Murree to Karachi: Court gives police custody of 14 target killers, extortionists

The men were arrested from Murree last week and sent to Karachi.

KARACHI: The physical custody of 14 alleged target killers and extortionists, who were arrested from Murree a few days ago and brought to Karachi, was given to the police by a district and sessions court on Sunday.

Waqar Ahmed Soomro, a judicial magistrate in district south, remanded the suspects till September 28 after they were produced before the court amid tight security.

Following their arrests by a special team of Karachi police, the police officials had claimed that the arrested men belonged to a politico-religious party and it was revealed during the initial course of interrogation that they were allegedly involved in the killing of around one-and-a-half dozen people, including the workers the Muttahida Qaumi Movement.

The police officials said that the arrested men - Khalid, Naeem aka Shera, Maqsood Ahmed, Imran aka Shikra, Shahid Qadri, Alamgir, Shoaib, Ovais, Basharat, Ahmed Abbasi, Salman, Amir aka Billa, Sajjad and Danish - were involved in number of cases of extortion, murder, attempted murder, police encounters and robberies in Old City areas.

The suspects were booked under Sections 147 (punishment for rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), 353 (criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty), 324 (attempted murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code at the Napier police station.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 23^rd, 2013.