Sehwan shrine attack: How a ‘Doctor’ led a man down the path of terrorism

On a Thursday evening 10 months ago, a bomb ripped through the revered Sufi saint Lal Shahbaz Qalandar’s shrine in Sehwan, leaving close to a hundred people dead and more than 300 others wounded.

Fast-forward nine months to November 17: the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) made the announcement at a news conference that they had arrested a suspect in connection with the February 16 bombing during a coordinated raid with the Rangers in Karachi’s Manghopir locality.

The News recently talked to a senior CTD official, who shared the joint interrogation team’s report on the suspect that has already been submitted in court. His case has also been forwarded to a military court for trial.

The report throws light on how the man in question turned into a terrorist. Nadir, alias Murshid, hails from the Saeed Khan Jakhrani village in Sindh’s Kashmore district. His landlord father has five sons, of whom Nadir is the eldest.

His family is religious and follows the Deobandi sect. His father and other relatives regularly join preaching teams in Lahore’s Raiwind town, and he also used to accompany them. He and his family are also affiliated with a religio-political party.

Nadir met Ghulam Mustafa Mazari – aliases Doctor, Saeen and Shah Jee – in 2009, when the latter visited the former’s village. Doctor has ties to the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). He is also a relative of clerics Abdul Rasheed and Abdul Aziz of the Lal Masjid in Islamabad.

Nadir was inspired by Doctor’s extremist views and began visiting him at the Abdullah-Rojhan Mazari village in Punjab. He also grew close to Rasheed’s sons Haroon and Haris through Doctor.

Doctor also introduced Nadir to another relative of his and the Lal Masjid clerics, Saifullah Sodwani Mazari, who was to become Nadir’s partner in crime. Doctor took Nadir to Punjab’s Rajanpur city and got him admission at a college in 2011. He studied there for six months before he quit.

He later joined the LeJ and remained an active member along with Doctor, who introduced him to many other members of the LeJ and the TTP belonging to Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan.

In 2015-16 Nadir visited the headquarters of the LeJ and the TTP in Balochistan’s Mastung district with Doctor and Maulvi Ghaffar Maher, a close friend of Doctor from Sukkur.

There Nadir met Raheem Brohi, alias Mamoo, Ijaz Bungalzai, alias Rehman, Maulvi Attkli Brohi (suicide bomber reportedly killed in Quetta), Jaro Mahar and many others whose names he cannot recall now. He then joined the newly formed Islamic State (Daesh) with Doctor, who was made the chief of the group and assigned operational tasks in Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan.

Nadir made frequent visits to Karachi, Quetta and parts of Punjab with Doctor and met many terrorists of the LeJ, the TTP and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Afghanistan. The names that Nadir recalls include Saeed Badiani, aliases Taqwa and Farhan – responsible for the Shah Noorani blast and many others in Balochistan; killed by the Quetta CTD – and Zubair, aliases Zarar and Zeeshan Bungalzai – wanted in terrorism cases in Balochistan.

The Sehwan attack

The planning and execution of the Sehwan shrine attack was visualised by Doctor, Ijaz Bungalzai, an unidentified friend of the two and Nadir. The planning began in the first week of February in Balochistan’s Dera Murad Jamali city. Tanveer, Farooq Bungalzai and Zulqarnain were also present in the meeting.

Since Nadir is familiar with Sehwan, he accepted to lead the attack. Accompanied by Saifullah and Barar Brohi (the bomber), he travelled to the historic city on a bus from Kashmore.

On reaching Sehwan, Nadir rented a room there. In the evening he took Brohi to the shrine to conduct reconnaissance, instructing the bomber to target the Dhamaal. The night before the attack, Doctor summoned Nadir to Jahaz Chowk to hand over the suicide jacket.

Nadir informed Doctor that they would take advantage of the electricity load-shedding, which began every evening at 6:30, to carry out the attack. On February 16, after the power supply was shut down, Nadir left Brohi at the Dhamaal and went to Jahaz Chowk with Saifullah. After hearing the explosion, they informed Doctor, who picked them up in a car and they drove off to Saifullah’s residence in Rojhan Mazari.

The Quetta plan

On April 15 or 16, Doctor visited Nadir’s village and asked the latter to go to Quetta. The man left for Quetta the next day and reached the city by 3pm.

Nadir stopped at his uncle’s house near Jan Mohammad Road. Doctor planned a meeting at Saleem Complex the next day. Nadir and Doctor met at a hotel, where Taqwa also joined them.

They decided to rent a house in Quetta. A few days later they found a house near Jan Mohammad Road. Taqwa gave Nadir Rs620,000 for renting it. They later planned to kidnap a senior official or a wealthy person to hold hostage at the house.

Taqwa and Zubair visited the house frequently, but the former was arrested a few days later, following which Nadir ran back to his village, from where he moved to Karachi for some time and then to Balochistan. When he went to Hub with a plan to commit a terrorist attack in Karachi, he was arrested with explosives.