Sultan Siddiqui gave weapons for Safoora attack

Karachi
The Safoora carnage investigators on Thursday were given 15 more days by an anti-terrorism court to interrogate Sultan Qamar Siddiqui, a former vice chairman of the Fishermen’s Cooperative Society (FCS), his brother Hussain Qamar alias Shibli and Sajid Naeem alias Peena, over their alleged links to the May 13 attack in which over 45 members of the Ismaili community were mercilessly gunned down.
The three men, as per the comments made by Investigation Officer DSP Khalid Khan in court, stand accused of providing logistical support to the attackers, with the IO going as far as to say that Siddiqui and his accomplices had provided the weapons used in the harrowing incident.
The IO further told the ATC bench that upon Sultan and Sajid’s admissions, raids were conducted at their houses and five rifles, six 9mm pistols and 3,000 rounds were seized.
Of the three men, Sultan Siddiqui, who was then serving as the FCS’ acting chairman, was sent on a 90-day physical remand by an ATC on June 18, hours after he was picked up from his house by the Sindh Rangers on charges including extortion and corruption.
The remand was granted over the Rangers' claims that Siddiqui had, within a few hours of his arrest, confessed to having sent 70 percent of extortion money collected through the fish harbour to the Bilawal House, besides also being involved in massive corruption cases, facilitating terrorists and smuggling weapons. The court was informed that the accused was arrested after an investigation revealed his involvement in the mentioned cases.
It was further alleged that Siddiqui along with other influential people was abetting Lyari’s gangsters by providing them millions of rupees earned from the fish harbour.
Officials who took part in the raid at Siddiqui’s house, situated in Gulistan-e-Jauhar, also claimed to have recovered important documents related to the FCS.
On September 16, Sultan, along with Hussain and Sajid, was handed over into police custody for a period of 14 days. The remand was awarded by an ATC as the Rangers’ previous 90-day preventive custody period had expired. At that particular hearing, the court was informed that the suspects had admitted before a joint investigation team about their involvement in the Safoora attack.
With the police’s 14-day remand having expired on September 30, the ATC was presented details of the extent of the three suspects’ alleged involvement and convinced to extend the detention period till October 15.
Till now, five accused – Saad Aziz, Tahir Hussain Minhas, Asadur Rehman, Azhar Ishrat and Hafiz Nasir – are already under detention for carrying out the Safoora attack, while 10 more co-accused including Tayyab Masood, Ali-ur-Rehman and Umer remain on the run.
Of the detained accused, Saad Aziz has also been charged with the murder of two men, Muhammad Khan and Mustansar Abad, and injuring six people in a shooting incident near the Bahadurabad police station. Aziz is also said to be the mastermind of the fatal attack on T2F director Sabeen Mahmud, as well as the one on educationist Debra Lobo.
Along with Asadur Rehman, he has also been charged with murdering a policeman, Arshad.

Rangers hand over 5 men
Five men suspected of involvement in target killings and extortion activities were remanded to the Rizvia police’s custody after the Rangers’ 90-day preventive custody period expired.
The suspects – Muhammad Hamid, Muhammad Ismail, Shakir, Imtiaz and Muhammad Nawab – had been picked up three months ago by the paramilitary force. A Rangers’ law officer informed the court that the five accused were being handed over to the Rizvia police as their custody period had ended.