KARACHI: Two suspected militants of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) allegedly involved in the recent killing of police officers and members of the Ismaili and Bohra communities were killed in an ‘encounter’ in Korangi in the early hours of Saturday, officials said.

A time bomb that the militants had set at their hideout was safely defused and police seized a large number of detonators, two pistols, explosive substance and pamphlets from their possession.

As the targeted operation in Noorani Basti of Korangi was being conducted by a joint team of Counter-Terrorism Department, Pakistan Rangers and intelligence agencies, the militants hurled hand grenades at the personnel and opened fire on them. In the ensuing encounter, the two militants were killed.

‘The suspects were involved in the killing of policemen, members of Ismaili, Bohra communities’

The militants, identified as Irfanullah alias Hammad alias Sheena and Nasir alias Khalid, belonged to the Mufti Shakir-led group of the TTP, said CTD DIG Amir Farooqi while speaking at a press conference at his office.

CTD SSP (Intelligence) Omar Shahid said the militants were involved in the recent targeted killing of three policemen in Korangi’s Awami Colony besides a traffic police official, Mohammed Khan, on Abul Hasan Ispahani Road.

An MP-5 rifle snatched from the wounded traffic policeman, Kamran, was also seized from the custody of the deceased following the encounter in Korangi, said the officer in charge of the CTD’s Transnational Terrorism Intelli­gence Group, Raja Umar Khattab. The officer said the TTP had displayed the snatched rifle on their social media site.

Some accomplices of the militants had been recently killed in an ‘encounter’ by the CTD.

The CTD officer told Dawn that Irfanullah’s relatives, too, had been involved in militancy, as a brother of his had been killed in a drone strike and another allegedly involved in an attack on a former minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa belonging to the Awami National Party had been gunned down in an ‘encounter’. The family shifted to Karachi from Peshawar in 2013.

Mr Khattab said one of the TTP militants, Nasir, had been directly sent from Afghanistan by Qari Saifullah, a Bannu resident who has been providing logistic and other support to the militants there.

A forensic test showed that the two pistols seized from the custody of the deceased had been used in the targeted killing of a textile mill’s general manager belonging to the Ismaili community in 2014, the CTD officer said. 

The weapons had also been used in the targeted killing of two Bohra community members in North Nazimabad the same year. 

One of their accomplices, Hashim, was in jail for killing Bohra community members, the CTD official said, adding that he was arrested in 2014. 

Mr Khattab said their third accomplice had escaped during a raid conducted by the CTD in Shah Faisal Colony around two weeks ago. He was later killed by security forces near the Chaman border when he attempted to flee to Afghanistan.

“With the killing of these militants, one group that was active in the targeted killing of policemen has been eliminated,” said DIG Farooqi.

In reply to a question, DIG Farooqi said there were at least four to five militant groups operating in the city.

Meanwhile, IGP Sindh A.D. Khowaja announced Rs5 million reward for the police team.

Published in Dawn, August 20th, 2017