Daesh network exists in Sindh: CTD prepares list of 53 terrorists

KARACHI: The presence of Daesh has been confirmed in Sindh as the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) has prepared a list of 53 terrorists who, it says, are affiliated with the terrorist organisation.

According to CTD sources, Abdullah Yousuf alias Abdul Aziz and also Saqib is the Ameer of Daesh, while another suspected terrorist has been identified as Shahid Khokhar, who hails from Hyderabad.

The CTD sources further said that the third terrorist is Bilal who is affiliated with Daesh and hails from Mirpurkhas. They said teams had been constituted to bust the network of Daesh in Sindh.

Earlier in Islamabad, Inspector General Police (IGP), Sindh, Ghulam Hyder Jamali, while briefing a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on the Interior on Monday, had revealed that Daesh was involved in an attack on the Ismaili community bus in Safoora Goth.

He said that Daesh and the banned terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi were linked to each other. Referring to the Safoora attack suspects, he told the senators that they had been involved with Daesh for at least a year and had been receiving instructions from one Abdul Aziz located in Syria.

He informed them that half-a-dozen laptops were also recovered from the suspects, which would help in finding important clues to the attack.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Sindh Police denied reports regarding any exclusive list of Daesh and 53 other terrorists. The spokesman has said that no such list has been issued by the police, as being reported.

Earlier, the police had told The News that three terrorist organisations that are operating as a nexus are planning to carry out attacks in Karachi in the month of Muharram.

The al-Qaeda Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) which is now linked with the Middle Eastern terrorist group Daesh, working together, are involved in many terrorist activities in Sindh in the recent past, including murdering police officials in Karachi, counter-terrorism department anti-sectarian intelligence chief Khurram Waris told The News.

He added that AQIS was now leading the other two groups.

Militants arrested by the CTD in raids conducted in different parts of the province have disclosed during interrogation that the nexus had formed three groups in the province headed by commanders known only by their code names - Umer, Mistry and Bengali – involved in killings and other terrorist activities in Hyderabad and Karachi.

They were responsible for the recent killing traffic policemen in Karachi and also the attack on a bus carrying members of the Ismaili community in the Safoora Goth area of the city.

Waris said the groups were also generating funds for their organisations by committing robberies and kidnappings for ransom, extorting traders, and collecting donations using fake madrassa receipts.—Published in The News