Suspects in MPA Haider’s assassination held: police

Accused are alleged to be members of banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and involved in many other murders

By Salis bin Perwaiz

The Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Sindh, arrested on Tuesday two alleged activists of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ) who had allegedly been involved in the murder of the Muttahida MPA, Raza Haider, as well as many others during a spate of sectarian violence. They also recovered arms, explosives and other items. This was stated by the Provincial Police Officer of Sindh, Babar Khattak, while talking to the press on Wednesday. Giving the sequence of the events that led to the arrest of the accused, Khattak said that directives had been issued to the Additional Inspector-General of Police of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), Sindh, Saud Mirza, to arrest those involved in the sectarian killings in the city recently. In this regard, the Additional IG of CID directed his subordinates, SSPs Mohammed Aslam Khan and Mohammed Fayyaz Khan, to expand their network and solve the cases of sectarian killings in the city and arrest those behind them. During the course of the investigation, the teams, under the supervision of the SSPs, raided a hideout of the banned religious outfit in Orangi Town, and, after a brief encounter, arrested Waseem alias Baroodi and Abdullah alias Taimur alias Darzee while their companion fled under the cover of fire. Moreover, the police recovered one Kalashnikov, two 9mm pistols, 100 kilogrammes of RDX explosives, two RPG rockets, 30 meters of detonating cord, five bundles of electric wire and one CG-125 motorcycle during the search of the hideout. The accused were taken to the investigation unit. The investigators who had interrogated the suspects said that Waseem Baroodi, a resident of Orangi Town, had joined the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in 2000 and was allegedly assigned to work under the Shakeel Burmi group of the LJ to carry out sectarian killings. He had been arrested in 2001 in cases of sectarian killings but was later released in 2007. However, he again allegedly got involved in sectarian killings under the command of Shakeel Burmi and was again arrested by a CID team under SSP Fayyaz Khan in 2009. He had recently gotten a bail and became the Amir of the group, and again went back to his old practices. They added that accused Baroodi had presently been residing in Azizabad and “is a local resident of Karachi”. The investigators said that accused Abdullah alias Taimur’s family hailed from Sialkot but he had been born in Karachi and was residing with his family in Sukhan. They added that Taimur was a tailor by profession, running a shop in his locality. In 2005, he had had some differences with an adjacent shopkeeper, a barber, who used to play some recordings of different “Allamas”, and they disputed over the issue on several occasions which ultimately ended in Taimur killing the barber and fleeing to Sukkur where he joined the LJ. He was arrested by the police in Kashmore (Sindh) with a suicide jacket but was later released on bail. He returned to Karachi and allegedly started working with Waseem Baroodi. During the probe the two accused told the police that they belonged to the LJ and they had been told to take revenge of their leaders’ killings. And so they drew a plan and went on a murder spree, killing Dr Syed Abbas Haider in SITE area on May 10, 2010, Asif Raza on June 1 in Rizvia police limits and Junaid Shakir in Bilal Colony on June 3. Syed Shahzad Raza was targeted in New Town on June 9, Naseer Hussain Jaffer in Nazimabad on June 12 and Anees Hussain Jaffery in Jackson police limits on July 9. They also killed Fayyaz Rizvi in Iqbal Market on July 6, 2010. The terrorists then killed MQM’s MPA, Raza Haider, and his guard, PC Khalid, in Nazimabad on August 2, 2010. Their other alleged victims were Agha Abid Sherazi who had been killed in Ferozeabad on August 10, Zakir Hussain in Ferozeabad on August 11 and Mirza Khadim Hussain in Nazimabad. The empties recovered from the scene of crimes and those recovered from the possessions of the suspects bore similarities after a forensic test, the police claimed. Besides, they said that the sketches issued after the crime also confirmed that the arrested suspects were the real culprits. Meanwhile, Rs1,000,000 has been announced for the police team which arrested the suspects.