HYDERABAD: Police claimed on Friday to have foiled a major terror plot by arresting eight suspected terrorists during a raid in a Hyderabad suburb.
Official sources said a team of police personnel acting on intelligence-based information about the presence of a terrorist hideout near Hatri Bypass carried out the raid.
The raid led to the arrest of eight terror suspects, who were shifted to an undisclosed location for interrogation, sources further said.
The police also seized 10 kilogrammes of explosive material, four Kalashnikov, pistols and other illicit arms from their possession.
Official sources said the arrested terrorists had links with a proscribed organization and were planning to carry out terrorist acts, targeting congregations of weekly Friday prayers.
On February 21, the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab police had arrested three terrorists during a raid carried out in Lahore’s Mughalpura area.
According to a CTD spokesperson explosive material and illicit arms were seized from the possession of the terrorists. The arrested terror suspects had links with the terrorist Islamic State.
The spokesman further said the militants were identified as Shoaibur Rahman, Abdul Rahman and Amir Salim.
According to sources, the suspects are likely to be responsible for creating bombs found in Hyderabad and Jamshoro, in the past few months.
The arrested suspects were shifted to an unknown location for investigations.
Last month the Hyderabad police recovered materials used in preparing improvised explosive devices (IED) during a raid in the late hours of Monday at a residential unit in Qasimabad.
According to the police, the material allegedly belonged to a group which was involved in an IED explosion on Qasimabad Road, which killed a man, on January 29.
The bomb disposal squad’s in-charge Ramzan Panhwar, said that around 500 grammes of explosives, bullets, batteries, remote and wires were recovered. According to him, a similar device was used in the explosion on December, 2016, outside the Sindh Agriculture University which targeted the Rangers. A shadowy group, Sindhu Desh Liberation Army, was blamed for that incident which left a Rangers personnel, injured along with a civilian.
A police source said that two suspects, Murtaza Abro and Muzafar Nagraj, had been arrested after the January 29 explosion in Hyderabad. During the interrogation, the two suspects reportedly disclosed to the police the identities of their alleged accomplices and their whereabouts after which a raid was conducted at a bungalow in Abdullah Villas Monday night.
The house belonged to an employee, Azizullah Magsi, of Lakhra Power House. He had rented the upper floor of his house to two individuals, Mazhar Panhwar and Salman, whom the police suspect to be associates of Abro and Nagraj. According to the police, Mazhar and Salman were not present at the place at the time of the raid.
Published in Daily Times, March 3rd 2018.
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