Karachi Police on Tuesday said the “mastermind” of last month’s terrorist attack on a Rangers camp in Karachi has been arrested, adding the terrorists had trained and received “backing from Afghanistan.”
On June 27, terrorists attacked the local headquarters of the Pakistan Rangers (Sindh) in Karachi’s Gulistan-e-Jauhar area, martyring three security personnel and injuring four others. In a statement, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) had said terrorists “belonging to Indian proxy Jamaatul Ahrar” carried out the attack. It said three of the attackers were killed in retaliatory action while one was arrested.
In a press conference alongside Sindh Home Minister Ziaul Hassan Lanjar, City Senior Superintendent of Police Irfan Bahadur identified the “mastermind” of the attack as Qari Basheer alias Qari Habib. He said Rangers took the accused into custody in an operation following the incident. Several of the accused’s “main facilitators” and “main smugglers” who provided weapons to the terrorists were also arrested, he added.
“All their [terrorists’] handlers were guiding them from Afghan soil that maximum damage should be done in the city and that Karachi’s peace be sabotaged by taking people hostage,” said Bahadur, adding law enforcement agencies had “discovered a network of facilitators involved in the attack through a comprehensive effort.”
According to the SSP, the attack was divided into four phases. “First of all, the planning and training of terrorists in Afghanistan. Secondly, four Afghan terrorists being taken from Afghanistan to Karachi. [Thirdly] backing from Afghanistan to run the facilitator group in Karachi,” he said. “And lastly, the provision of weapons, ammunition and suicide jackets to terrorists,” he added.
Bahadur identified the suicide bomber as Janaan, a resident of Afghanistan’s Farah province. He said a second terrorist, Bilal alias Hadi, born in Bajaur and later moved to Kandahar. The third terrorist was identified as Umer Farooq, a resident of Afghanistan’s Kunar, while the arrested terrorist was identified as Usman Sher Mohammad, hailing from Nangarhar.
The police official alleged Noor Wali, the head of “Indian proxy Fitna al Khawarij”—the state’s term for the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)—was part of the planners. Additionally, he said, Sher Wali alias Mukhlisyar and TTP Shura member Saeed Shah had provided information for the attack to Baseer, an Ahrar leader. These three, he alleged, had called mastermind Basheer from Afghanistan to Pakistan and “gave him the responsibility” for the attack.
“During his interrogation, he detailed how the leadership of Fitna al Khawarij from Afghanistan gave him instructions for the attack,” he said, while playing a video of the accused explaining he had met Saeed Shah in Afghanistan, who arranged a meeting with Noor Wali and Sher Wali. “They gave me a task for action against the police, Army and Rangers in Karachi,” he added.
The SSP noted that the captured attacker had told investigators during interrogation that the terrorists were trained at “various camps” in Afghanistan before being sent to Pakistan.
Bahadur explained that the four terrorists entered Pakistan by passing through various areas of Balochistan to reach Hub, where a car dropped them off at Chamra Chowrangi. In Hub, he said, Basheer rented a room for them. “Qari Basheer and his 13 other facilitators provided full facilitation to these four terrorists in taking them there, accommodation and providing transport to carry out a terrorist attack on the KTC Rangers camp,” he said, adding all the main facilitators were related to Qari Basheer.
In a video of Basheer, the accused details how the terrorists procured the ammunition and the suicide jacket. According to the SSP, Rahim Afridi and six others led the group that provided the weapons. “The main smugglers in this group who provide weapons have been arrested,” he said.
“The most alarming fact is that Afghan residents are being used to carry out these terrorist attacks,” he said, emphasizing that Afghan soil was being used to carry out terrorist attacks inside Pakistan.