Financing terror: PIA engineer remanded over 'involvement in Safoora carnage'

Official says Khalid Yusuf was arrested after brief encounter with police near Karachi’s Baloch Colony area on...

KARACHI: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Karachi has handed over a man, who is said to be working as a Pakistan International Airlines engineer and is suspected of financing terror activities of the Safoora carnage attackers, for a 90-day preventive detention to the police’s Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD).

Khalid Yusuf was apprehended after a brief encounter with the police near Karachi’s Baloch Colony area on Monday, an investigation officer informed the ATC judge as the suspect was produced in court amid tight security on Tuesday.

Read: Key witness against alleged terrorist in Safoora bus attack shot dead

The investigation officer further told the court that the accused was rounded up after suspects involved in the Safoora carnage informed investigators of Yusuf’s involvement in financing the group’s activities.

Further, he said the accused has been working as an engineer in the PIA and was financially supporting terrorist organisation al Qaeda.

The ATC, while accepting the request of the investigation officer to allow 90-day preventive detention of the accused for further investigation, handed over Yusuf to the CTD police.

During a hearing of the Safoora bus carnage case on September 16, the ATC remanded three more suspects to police custody following their implication in the case as the police arrested another suspect in the case. Sultan Qamar Siddiqi, Hussain Omar Siddiqi and Naeem Sajid were sent on a two-week physical remand after investigators submitted that they had confessed to facilitating the assailants who carried out the deadly Safoora bus attack.

Read: Aiding and abetting: Three more suspects implicated in Safoora case

The three suspects were arrested by Rangers in mid-June during raids in different parts of the city. Subsequently, they were grilled for 90 days under preventive detention.

On May 13, 45 people belonging to the Ismaili community were murdered and eight were critically wounded when gunmen attacked their bus in Safoora Goth.