LAHORE: Shahbaz Taseer’s alleged kidnapper and five other suspected militants were killed in an ‘encounter’ with a team of the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) near Sheikhupura late on Saturday night.

A CTD spokesperson told Dawn that they had received information that nine to 10 members of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were present in Sheikh­upura, planning an attack on the offices of law enforcement agencies.

At around 12:30am, the CTD team raided a house near the Sheikhupura Bypass. “Noticing their presence, the terrorists...tried to flee by a car and two motorcycles.”

The CTD team chased them up to a branch road where the suspects opened fire at the cops, said the spokesperson.

The security personnel retaliated. “When the shootout ended, six of the terrorists were dead and the rest had fled,” he said.

The CTD men seized arms and ammunition, including three Kalashnikov rifles, three pistols, 2kg of explosives, prima cords and a cache of bullets. They took the bodies to a hospital and started an investigation into their identification. Separately, the police launched a combing operation in the area to arrest the escaped suspects.

A senior police official requesting anonymity told Dawn that the CTD’s investigation team had identified one of the deceased as Haji Muhammad alias Pathan, who was accused of being involved in the abduction of Shahbaz Taseer, son of the late governor Salmaan Taseer.

He said Pathan had been declared a proclaimed offender and his name was listed in the Red Book (a list of most wanted militants). Pathan had rented a house in his name in Valencia Town, Lahore, where Taseer’s kidnappers had kept him for several days before taking him to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. According to the CTD’s investigations, Pathan had been declared a proclaimed offender in an FIR registered with the Gulberg police.

The official said that he (Pathan) belonged to two banned organisations — TTP and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. “Efforts are under way to identify the remaining five terrorists.”

Shahbaz Taseer was kidnapped near his company’s head office in Gulberg on Aug 26, 2011.

He was driving towards the offices of the First Capital Group off M.M. Alam Road when he was intercepted by the kidnappers.

The abductors, who, according to witnesses, had used a Prado jeep and a motorcycle, had bundled the young Taseer into a four-wheeler and sped away unimpeded.

UPDATE: Shahbaz Taseer on Monday rejected reports that his kidnappers had been killed in an encounter, through a post on Twitter.

Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2016