Karachi cop arrested for ‘having ties with RAW, MQM-London’

The Special Investigation Unit (SIU) of the Karachi police has claimed to have unearthed a network of India’s Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) within the Sindh police and arrested a police officer in this connection.

An assistant sub-inspector (ASI) posted at the investigation wing of the Sharea Faisal police station had gone missing a few days ago, but he seems to have appeared in police custody on Monday.

The officials who disclosed his arrest claimed that the arrested police officer had ties with Indian spy agency RAW and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-London (MQM-L).

ASI Shahzad Pervez’s arrest was disclosed by the SIU on Monday. He was reportedly picked up by the SIU and intelligence officials from District East three days ago when he was on his way home from work.

SIU chief SSP Irfan Bahadur claimed that the officer was arrested during a raid in the Gulistan-e-Jauhar neighbourhood, adding that weapons and hand grenades were also recovered from his possession.

The officials claimed that the ASI was a part of the team of target killers playing a vital role for the MQM-L, while he also helped RAW in carrying out terrorism and other criminal activities in Karachi.

They said he was being funded by former All Pakistan Muttahida Students Organisation chairman Mehmood Siddiqui, who has been in India for the past many years on RAW’s payroll, and despatched funds through hawala-hundi for carrying out terror activities in the city.

The arrest comes a little over a month after the city police chief claimed on March 19 to have foiled a major potential terrorism plot as they busted a local network of RAW operated by militants affiliated with the MQM-L.

Additional Inspector General of Police (Addl IGP) Ghulam Nabi Memon had said that there had been reports about RAW’s involvement in terrorism in Karachi, about the MQM-L running the intelligence agency’s local network and about the likelihood of them carrying out a major terror activity in the metropolis at any time.

“We found during our investigations that the MQM-L terrorist who received militancy training in India is the ringleader of the RAW network in Karachi,” Memon said while addressing a news conference at the Karachi Police Office in Saddar.

“The ringleader had been involved in terrorism here with his MQM-L colleagues on RAW’s instructions. He had been in touch with Siddiqui,” he said. The group had also been keeping in touch with the MQM-L’s notorious terrorist Safdar Baqri in Canada, he added.

The Addl IGP said the group had been tasked by RAW to provide funds to different terrorist groups in Karachi for carrying out terror activities, to store bombs and other weapons and supply them to different terrorists, to gather information about the city’s sensitive installations, including those of security and intelligence agencies, and share it with the intelligence agency as well as provide updates on the political situation in the metropolis.

He said the group also used to provide RAW’s special funds to Khalid Shamim, a prime suspect in the Imran Farooq murder case, adding that their bank transactions had been traced. The city police chief said the SIU had been tasked with finding and arresting the suspects, adding that the officials conducted raids in different parts of the city, including Gulistan-e-Jauhar, Federal B Area and Korangi, and arrested Shahid, alias Muttahida, an MQM-L militant heading RAW’s operations in Karachi, and two of his accomplices, namely Majid and Adil Ansari.

Memon said that since the group had been involved in financing terrorism as well as international murder, the government had been asked to form a joint investigation team, adding that a cash reward had also been recommended for the SIU team for saving Karachi from a major terrorism incident.

The police chief also claimed the raiding party had recovered a huge cache of weapons and ammunition, including hand grenades, mortars and launchers, as well as fuses and electronic detonators.