Karachi Five alleged members of the banned Sipah-e-Mohammad, believed to be responsible for over a dozen recent sectarian killings in Karachi, were arrested in a raid in the Tariq Road area, police said on Friday. Addressing a press conference at his office, AIG Karachi Shahid Hayat said a Special Investigation Unit team led by SSP Mohammad Farooq conducted a raid at a house near Jheel Park and after a shootout arrested five members of the banned outfit. They were identified as Syed Furqan alias Baba Jee, Faisal Mehmood, Syed Bu Turab, Syed Riffat Hussain Jaffery and Azhar Hussain. Two of their associates, Abbas Raza Zaidi and Raza, managed to escape. The police seized foreign 9mm pistols from the arrested men. The Karachi police chief said the members of the Sipah-e-Mohammad were running an office under the fake company name of FN Enterprises. “The office was used for meetings and planning target killings,” he added. “Besides, they were using vehicles that were clear in police records. Their weapons were also licensed.” Hayat said the members of the banned outfit wore caps that had mini camcorders concealed in them so that they could monitor the daily routines of their targets. Interrogation revealed that Syed Furqan was the leader of the group. In 2001, he had worked with proclaimed offenders of the Sipah-e-Mohammad including Raza Imam, Rashid, Suleman and Tanveer Abbas to kill Maulana Yousuf Ludhanvi, the imam of Jamia Farooqia Shah Faisal and scholars of Jamia Binoria, Guru Mandir. The arrested men disclosed that a man named Sajjad provided them with a monthly salary. They confessed to killing 13 people in the recent wave of sectarian killings. They killed Mohammad Kashif, Abdul Talib and Saeed Ahmed in an attack at Al-Jannat Bakery in Gulshan-e-Iqbal; Shadab and Hamza in Mobina Town; Allama Syed Kashif Hussain in Gulshan-e-Iqbal; and Azhar Abbas Safdar, Mohammad Aslam and Syed Ali Shah in Aziz Bhatti. The
murdered ASI Abdul Jabbar in Preedy; Saifullah, Mohammad Qureshi and Hassan in Gulshan-e-Iqbal; Mohammad Faisal in Sharifabad; Abid Mawiya and Sajjid Mawiya in Jauharabad; Aurangzeb and Abdul Wahid in Azizabad; and Jameelur Rehman in Yousuf Plaza. They also killed Hassan, Abdul Wahid and Nadir Ali in an attack in Gulshan-e-Iqbal. “We have confiscated the computer and other records found at their hideout. We also found a list of people they were planning to target next,” the AIG said. Hayat announced Rs1 million for the police team that arrested the five men and requested the provincial government to reward them too.
