Chaudhry Aslam’s assassination: TTP see nomination of its leaders as a ‘reward’

Says the group’s leaders are happy to be associated with the killing.

ISLAMABAD: The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) patted itself on the back on Sunday after its chief Mullah Fazalullah and spokesman Shahidullah Shahid were named in the FIR lodged over the killing of police officer Chaudhry Aslam.

“It is a reward for us that Tehreek-e-Taliban Ameer and its central spokesman Shahidullah Shahid have been nominated in the murder case of Chaudhry Aslam. With the grace of Allah Almighty we are not the killers of a weak person but nominated for killing a powerful man,” the Taliban said in a statement.

The TTP spokesman for its Mohmand Agency’s chapter, Sajjad Mohmand told The Express Tribune that the TTP Mohmand agency chief, Omar Khalid Khurasani had issued special instructions to kill Chaudhry Aslam as he had also killed some of their Taliban in ‘fake encounters’.



“We will keep on targeting important personalities in the future like we eliminated Sifwat Ghayur, Ajmeer Shah, Malal Saad, Hilal Haider and Major General Niazi,” the statement issued by Shahidullah Shahid said.

“We also warn the police and intelligence officers to desist from brutal acts against the Mujahideen and innocent people as we can also be nominated in your murder cases soon,” he said.

He claimed that police officer Shafiq Tanoli’s team kidnapped and killed three Taliban members on Saturday.

The TTP spokesman criticised the media for what he called portraying murders as heroes, adding that the media always claimed to be the champion of the poor but its actions were contrary to its claims.

Shahidullah Shahid, in his earlier statement, said the Taliban had warned Chaudhry Aslam a couple of time to stop his actions against the TTP but he had pressed ahead with his campaign.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 13^th, 2014.