SIU’s ‘Jundullah terrorists’ include media man

One of the five ‘Jundullah militants’ arrested by the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) on Tuesday is an employee of one of the largest media groups of the country, Pakistan Today has learnt. Police had claimed of averting a major terrorism threat during Muharram by arresting five alleged activists of the banned militant outfit, stated to be experts in manufacturing bombs in the shape of cement blocks and involved in several terrorist attacks in the city. The suspects, identified as Syed Kamran alias Waqar alias Bilal, Salar Muhammad alias Khalid alias Danish, Amjad Khan alias Kargil alias Shahji, Farhan Khan alias Hussain and Muhammad Muneer alias Azeem, were said to have arrived by train in Karachi from Waziristan and interior Punjab areas and planned to carry out terrorist activities during Muharram.
Well-placed sources told Pakistan Today on Wednesday that Muneer had disappeared on November 14 while returning home from the television channel’s office. “Muneer is deputed in the central monitoring department. He punched his attendance card at 4:30 pm and left for home,” a colleague of Muneer said. “But later at night, his family members called us [colleagues] and asked about his whereabouts as he had not arrived home till that time.” Muneer’s family members and colleagues frantically searched for him throughout the night but in vain.
After two days, Muneer’s family received a phone call from an ‘unknown’ number informing them that he was in their custody and will reach home in a day or two.
On November 18, the family received another call from the same ‘unknown’ number and the caller said: “Don’t worry, Muneer will be with his family in the coming days.”
The family waited for three more days and after losing hope, contacted the Mithadar police to lodge an FIR about Muneer’s disappearance.
However, on November 29, Additional Inspector General (AIG) Karachi Ghulam Shabbir Shaikh, while addressing a press conference announced the arrest of five suspects, including Muneer, involved in several heinous crimes.
“The arrested militants were involved in the Corps Commander attack, the attack on police at the City Courts, looting a van of the Aga Khan University Hospital, bomb blast at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and attack on the Gulistan-e-Jauhar police station,” the AIG had claimed.
The alleged accused were also stated to be involved in riots and arson that followed after the shooting of two scouts at Numaish Chowrangi on the first day of Muharram.
Meanwhile, talking with Pakistan Today, Muneer’s family members and colleagues said that he regularly attended office and never got involved in any negative activities. “It is common practice in the police, especially the SIU, to arrest innocent people to score points just before the start of Muharram.”
They said that Muneer had worked for years in several ventures in the same media group.
In 2010, the SIU had arrested four people – Shah Murad, Murtaza Inayat, Mohammad Wazeer and Shakeeb Farooqi – allegedly affiliated with Jundullah and involved in the Ashura blast of December 2009.
The then Karachi capital city police officer (CCPO), Waseem Ahmed, had stated on record that Jundullah was behind the Muharram attacks. But a camp within his ranks says that the four suspects may not be involved at all.
The four under-trial suspects escaped from the City Courts on June 19, 2010 after their accomplices attacked the policemen escorting the alleged accused at their trial.
A senior investigator, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the violent escape of the four suspects from court premises proved that they were indeed militants. “But we have reservations about the investigations into the Ashura blast case.”
The doubts became stronger on July 5, 2010 when then CCPO Lahore Aslam Tareen during a press conference said that his team had arrested eight alleged terrorists involved in attacking members of the Ahmadi community in the city and the Ashura blast in Karachi.
Crime Investigation Agency (Lahore) SP Omer Warak said the suspects in their custody were associated with the Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami – a group based in the north of the country. He claimed that his team had strong evidence linking the suspects with the Ashura blast in Karachi and one of them is a resident of Karachi.