Child feared dead in Friday’s encounter near DHA

A child is feared dead after a police operation took place late Friday night at Punjab Small Industry Housing Society adjacent to Alfalah Town, area residents told Pakistan Today.
According to an eye-witness from the neighbourhood, a policeman was carrying a child who appeared dead with clothes soaked in blood.
Pakistan Today, in a follow-up of the operation discovered that contrary to media reports, no suicide vests were recovered from the house where the alleged terrorists had reportedly been residing since the past six months. The only weapons found at the place were three hand grenades, three Kalashnikov rifles and a khaki bag that was full of bullets.
Whereas initial reports claimed the clash between the police and terrorists lasted for more than two hours, residents from the neighbourhood said the operation was to a large extent peaceful with an exchange of fire that lasted for not more than 20 minutes. “The firing was not continuous,” said a neighbourhood resident.
Sources further revealed that the alleged terrorists were willing to surrender and allow search of their house in presence of the media. “They were calling out to the police to bring Rehman Malik because they wanted to surrender in front of him and media personnel,” said a man who lived in a nearby house.
The general consensus among the residents was that these people, who had been leading an apparently normal life for the past many months, seemed harmless.
“We never noticed anything unusual other than that whenever the men used to come out of the house, they would use helmets to hide their faces. They never stopped for small talk and just waved if they saw anyone in the street,” said an elderly man who lives near the alleged hideout.
He said that the men used to leave the house around 9am in the morning on their motorcycle and returned in the afternoon. “This was their routine from day one. No one knows what they did for a living or from where they had come,” he said.
The police have taken into custody Shafique, a property dealer, who had leased the house to the suspected terrorists.
Police sources said that during initial interrogation, Shafique told them that the house had been rented out to a man named Zulfiqar for Rs 16,000 per month and the latter used to deposit the rental amount to him. They said that Zulfiqar’s National Identity Card showed his area of residence on Warris Road.
They said that four men, four women and five children were taken into custody during the operation, and have been shifted to an undisclosed location for further interrogation. They added that all the arrested suspects were Punjabis, contrary to media reports which said that the suspects were Pakhtuns.
According to police sources, the alleged terrorists were not going to carry out an attack but were in fact masterminds behind potential attacks.
Cantt SP Maroof Wahla told Pakistan Today that he had come to know about the incident around 9am on Saturday.
“Intelligence agencies do not take police into confidence when conducting sensitive operations. We do not know about the suspects’ identity or what they are suspected of having been involved in,” he said, adding that he could not comment on claims that a child had been killed or injured in the operation.