Not on the same page: Police officials at odds over location of suspects
The 17 men who were arrested from Benazirabad were handed over to the Karachi police.
To get to the bottom of the matter, the Sindh police Inspector General has constituted a four-member committee. ILLUSTRATION: JAMAL KHURSHID
HYDERABAD/KARACHI:
The Benazirabad police and their counterparts in Karachi it appears have reached an impasse over the location of the 17 suspects arrested by the former on September 24 - while officials of Benazirabad maintain that the men have been released by the Karachi Police, the former have denied the reports.
To get to the bottom of the matter, the Sindh police Inspector General has constituted a four-member committee. The B-Section (Benazirabad) SHO Mubeen Parehar, in whose limits the raid was conducted, submitted his statement before the committee in Karachi on Thursday.
“The suspects are in our custody and the committee is investigating the arrests,” said Superintendent Police (SP) Investigation, East Karachi, Junaid Ahmed Shaikh, who is also part of the committee. He added that some of the suspects were children, between the ages of 13 to 17 years.
Suspicious behaviour
The suspects were arrested from a katcha (riverbed) village in Benazirabad’s Sakrand taluka. According to the police, they had stayed at the residence of Ahmed Khan Chandio, a convict in a 1992 kidnapping case, for at least ten days.
“We received intelligence reports that some suspicious people of Pakhtun descent were staying at Chandio’s house and were never seen leaving the house,” Benazirabad SSP Javed Jiskani said while talking to The Express Tribune. “During the raid, the police found weapons, two cars without documents, $700, over Rs22,000 and Chinese Yen.”
What made the police more suspicious was the proximity of the residence to the police commando training centre and a camp of Chinese engineers - the centre is just one kilometre from the village in Nasri Bela (forest) and Chinese camp is at a distance of around nine kilometres.
Transfer of custody
The suspects were arrested on September 24. A press conference of the SSP was scheduled in the afternoon but it was cancelled in the nick of time as, reportedly, he was asked to hand them over to the Karachi police. Subsequently, the suspects were given to Karachi’s Gadap police around 1am that night, said the SSP. Gadap SHO Imtiaz Niazi, however, denied ever being given the custody of the suspects.
According to sources, the police chief has directed officials to hand over suspects arrested in any part of the province in relation to the ongoing security operation in Karachi to the Gadap police. A group of four to five officers has been deputed at Gadap to interrogate all such suspects before proceeding with further investigations.
Loopholes
According to the Benazirabad police, the men were then released by the Karachi police who said that they were not involved in terror activities and were cattle traders.
“The three main cattle markets are in Daur, Nawabshah and Qazi Ahmed talukas but the suspects were staying in Sakrand taluka,” said DSP Aijaz Tareen who led the raid.
The SSP added that three separate cases of murder and violence are registered against 12 of the 17 suspects - two at the Ferozeabad police station and one at the Pirabad police station. “The bakra theory by the Karachi police is ridiculous,” he commented. “The IGP directed us to look for the suspects trying to evade the Karachi operation, but when we do so, our efforts are mocked.”
On the other hand, officials in Karachi said that they never released the suspects, discarding the reports of the suspects being cattle traders completely.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 27th, 2013.
The Benazirabad police and their counterparts in Karachi it appears have reached an impasse over the location of the 17 suspects arrested by the former on September 24 - while officials of Benazirabad maintain that the men have been released by the Karachi Police, the former have denied the reports.
To get to the bottom of the matter, the Sindh police Inspector General has constituted a four-member committee. The B-Section (Benazirabad) SHO Mubeen Parehar, in whose limits the raid was conducted, submitted his statement before the committee in Karachi on Thursday.
“The suspects are in our custody and the committee is investigating the arrests,” said Superintendent Police (SP) Investigation, East Karachi, Junaid Ahmed Shaikh, who is also part of the committee. He added that some of the suspects were children, between the ages of 13 to 17 years.
Suspicious behaviour
The suspects were arrested from a katcha (riverbed) village in Benazirabad’s Sakrand taluka. According to the police, they had stayed at the residence of Ahmed Khan Chandio, a convict in a 1992 kidnapping case, for at least ten days.
“We received intelligence reports that some suspicious people of Pakhtun descent were staying at Chandio’s house and were never seen leaving the house,” Benazirabad SSP Javed Jiskani said while talking to The Express Tribune. “During the raid, the police found weapons, two cars without documents, $700, over Rs22,000 and Chinese Yen.”
What made the police more suspicious was the proximity of the residence to the police commando training centre and a camp of Chinese engineers - the centre is just one kilometre from the village in Nasri Bela (forest) and Chinese camp is at a distance of around nine kilometres.
Transfer of custody
The suspects were arrested on September 24. A press conference of the SSP was scheduled in the afternoon but it was cancelled in the nick of time as, reportedly, he was asked to hand them over to the Karachi police. Subsequently, the suspects were given to Karachi’s Gadap police around 1am that night, said the SSP. Gadap SHO Imtiaz Niazi, however, denied ever being given the custody of the suspects.
According to sources, the police chief has directed officials to hand over suspects arrested in any part of the province in relation to the ongoing security operation in Karachi to the Gadap police. A group of four to five officers has been deputed at Gadap to interrogate all such suspects before proceeding with further investigations.
Loopholes
According to the Benazirabad police, the men were then released by the Karachi police who said that they were not involved in terror activities and were cattle traders.
“The three main cattle markets are in Daur, Nawabshah and Qazi Ahmed talukas but the suspects were staying in Sakrand taluka,” said DSP Aijaz Tareen who led the raid.
The SSP added that three separate cases of murder and violence are registered against 12 of the 17 suspects - two at the Ferozeabad police station and one at the Pirabad police station. “The bakra theory by the Karachi police is ridiculous,” he commented. “The IGP directed us to look for the suspects trying to evade the Karachi operation, but when we do so, our efforts are mocked.”
On the other hand, officials in Karachi said that they never released the suspects, discarding the reports of the suspects being cattle traders completely.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 27th, 2013.