Karachi: When police officials had seized a huge cache of arms and ammunition from a house near the Muttahida Qaumi Movement headquarters, Nine Zero, in Azizabad last month, they had made tall claims of bringing all the culprits to book. But their probe appears to have fallen flat as a new development emerged on Tuesday.
The investigating officer admitted before an anti-terrorism court that the police had failed to trace the culprits, and requested that the Azizabad weapons case be categorised as A-Class. The plea was accepted. Categorising a court case as A-Class means the investigation process is suspended until the law enforcers submit any substantial evidence.
The October 5 police raid was termed the largest-ever bust in the history of the Karachi police. The weapons confiscated included those that were supposed to be in use of Nato forces in Afghanistan, as well as bulletproof vests, and there were reports that terrorists wanted to use them in Muharram.
It had taken the police five trucks to transport the weapons from Azizabad to the office of the DIG West. Sindh police chief AD Khwaja, Karachi police chief Mushtaq Mehar and Rangers Sindh chief Maj-Gen Bilal Akbar had announced separate rewards of Rs500,000 each for the Central District police team that raided the house and found the weapons.
Mehar had later told a news conference that the Central District police, in collaboration with an intelligence agency, had arrested a suspect belonging to a political party.
During the interrogation, he added, the suspect made startling disclosures, including the presence of a huge cache of weapons in an abandoned house.
A police team, along with intelligence officials, raided the house at about 5am and carried out a search, which yielded in the discovery of the arms and ammunition in an underground water tank.
The police chief said the accused had also named several leaders of a political party who were involved in the purchase of the weapons with money they had generated from extortion. He added that the weapons were used in the city, especially on Muharram 9 and 10, for murdering people with the support of the Indian intelligence agency (RAW) and the London leadership of the political party. He also said the suspects had gathered a large cache of weapons for terrorists associated with the party’s South African wing.
The weapons confiscated were 11 anti-aircraft guns, three 12.7 guns with mount, 17 grenade launchers, 39 light machine guns, nine RPG-7s, 82 submachine guns (SMGs), 11 7mm rifles, 32 China rifles, 10 G-3 rifles, five sniper rifles, two repeater guns, nine short SMGs, and 245 magazines of SMGs and G-3s. The ammunitions seized were 450,000 bullets of 7.62mm, 50,000 of 7mm, 10,000 of 5.56mm, 5,000 of 9mm, 10,000 miscellaneous, 84 RPG-7 rockets, 85 RPG-7 rocket fuses, 2,000 rifle grenades, 200 hand grenades, 140 bulletproof vests with plates and 30 helmets. https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/168723-Despite-tall-claims-police-probe-falls-flat
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