KARACHI – Additional District and Sessions Judge (East) Afzal Roshan on Thursday remanded four Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan suspects, who were arrested by the Crime Investigation Department on Wednesday, for seven days. The accused men – Musharraf, Sherz Ali, Hameedullah and Ahmad Ali – were brought before the court amid tight security, escorted by a heavy contingent of law enforcers. Police produced the accused men before the trial court and sought their physical remand for conducting further investigation.
According to the prosecution, the suspects were arrested on Wednesday following a brief encounter that took place in Metroville. Police submitted that a team had raided a hideout on a tip-off and arrested the four accused men; however, their accomplices – Qari Abid Mehsud, Tayyab Mehsud and Shujah Mehsud who are suspected to have links to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi – managed to escape under the cover of firing.
The law enforcers also claimed to have recovered a suicide jacket, 32 kilogrammes of Composition C-4 (explosive), seven hand grenades, a smoke bomb, a detonator, 10 metres of detonation wire, three Kalashnikovs, three TT pistols, and drugs from Sohrab Goth after interrogating the arrested men.
Police stated that the detained men have links to Waziristan and often visit Karachi for terror activities, whereas they were planning to attack the offices of intelligence agencies as well as senior police officers. They said that the suspects were also involved in an attack on January 15, 2009, when AVCU chief SSP Farooq Awan, his team and intelligence officials had raided terrorists’ hideout in Sohrab Goth to rescue prominent filmmaker Satish Anand. Two policemen were killed and around a dozen, including SSP Awan and intelligence officials, were wounded in the attack, they added.
On Thursday, the court sent the four accused men to police custody, and directed the law enforcers to produce the detainees before the court in the next hearing.
