Trained assassins: CID releases names, sketches of 11 hit squad members

Officials say members were behind multiple large-scale targeted attacks.

KARACHI:

The Crime Investigation Department, claiming to have unravelled the network of a banned outfit operating in the city, released the pictures and sketches of 11 members of the group on Saturday at a press conference.

The 11 members include ringleader Syed Wasim Ahsan Naqvi aka Shahid aka Kashif, Nisar Hussain aka Rehmat, Abbas aka Gora, Gul aka Abdullah, Sajid, Kashif aka Arif, Imran aka Mota aka Kalo, Adnan aka Manjan, Muhammad Ali Rizvi aka Doctor and two unidentified men. The gang reportedly has 17 members in total.

Officials were able to gather the details with information from two of its members - Jauhar Hussain aka Jafer aka Rehman and Irshad Hussain aka Amir aka Hussain. Their arrests were disclosed during the press conference held by in-charge of the CID’s Counter Terrorism and Financial Crime Unit (CTFCU). One motorcycle, a Kalashnikov, three pistols, two cars and a CD with the list of their would-be targets were also found from their possession, claimed the officials. The arrests were made after an encounter when a police team conducted a raid in Abbas Town.

CTFCU in-charge Raja Omar Khattab informed the media that the arrested suspects are affiliated with the banned outfit, Sipah-e-Muhammad Pakistan, and Syed Waseem Ahsan Naqvi aka Shahid is their ring-leader in Karachi.

“This group has been involved in around 60 cases of sectarian killings in Karachi alone,” said Khattab. “A neighbouring country is providing funds and militancy training to this group.”

The arrested suspects reportedly revealed that their ring leader paid each of them Rs25,000 per month to target people and even provided them with a residential flat and motorcycles.

“These members knew each other only by face but they did not know each other even by names,” explained Khattab. Besides individual acts of targeted killings, the arrested persons also revealed to have targeted the central leader of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, Maulana Aurangzaib Farooqui in Gulshan-e-Iqbal in December 2012 in which the leader was injured while six of his guards, including four policemen, were killed. “Few of their members were also arrested in the past but were later released from the jails,” said the official, adding that the police was looking for the mastermind and more group members.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 26^th, 2014.