KARACHI - The Rangers on Tuesday arrested a target killer having political affiliation with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and recovered huge cache of weapons from a house near the party headquarters Nine Zero in Azizabad area. Kashif aka David – a target killer and in-charge of the party’s militant wing – was arrested by the Rangers the other night. Being tipped off, the paramilitary force raided the house in Azizabad area and recovered huge cache of weapons including rocket launchers and hand-grenades, light machine guns Kalashnikovs and Rangers uniforms.
Talking to media, Rangers’ Wing Commander Colonel Faisal disclosed the arrest of David and put on display the weapons recovered from him.
“David had managed to flee abroad after the Karachi operation started and has recently returned.” He said that David remained involved in number of cases, particularly target killings and other heinous crimes. However, the area from where the David was arrested was not disclosed by the Rangers.
Being affiliated to the MQM’s Orangi Town sector, David is said to be a close aide of the party’s already arrested notorious target killer Ajmal Pahari and MQM’s former Karachi Tanzeemi Committee in-charge Hammad Siddiqui.
David had fled to Dubai after the launching of targeted operation in Karachi. Kashif David’s arrest had previously surfaced in August 2015; however none of the official from any law enforcement agency confirmed it.
Talking to media outside the Sindh High Court, David’s wife Raheela revealed that her husband had gone missing for the last eleven months as the law enforcers arrested him from Dubai on June 1, 2015. She pointed out that they had filed a petition to know whereabouts of Kashif.
Meanwhile, the Rangers issued a list of the 61 accused kept in 90-day preventive custody. Most of them belong to the MQM and were arrested by Rangers for their involvement in target killings, extortion, land mafia and terror financing.
MQM Rabita Committee Deputy Convener Shahid Pasha, a key worker of the party’s organisational structure Minhaj Qazi, mastermind of china-cutting Saeed aka Saeed Barham and Lyari’s kingpin Uzair Jan Baloch are among the detainees.
“The detainees’ families could meet them as per the jail manual,” explained the spokesperson. The list comprises names of suspects arrested in various ongoing operations. The spokesman further informed that Anti-Terrorism Court has handed over the suspects to Rangers on 90-day remand. Information about the relevant jail and other details of the suspects are included in the list. However, political affiliations of the suspects were not mentioned in the list.
Shahid Pasha was arrested during a paramilitary force’s pre-dawn raid conducted at his residence in Gulistan-e-Jauhar on March 21. Minhaj Qazi was arrested in a raid conducted by the paramilitary troops in Garden locality on January 29. Uzair Baloch, a notorious leader of the Lyari gang war and chief the People’s Amman Committee (PAC), was arrested in a targeted operation on January 30.
Separately, two persons were wounded in a hand-grenade attack in Dubai Chowk area of Lyari. The injured identified as Arsalan Haider and Naveed Behram were hurried to the Civil Hospital for medical treatment where doctors termed their condition out of danger.
Following the attack, extra contingent of the law enforcers, including the Rangers and police, reached the site. The police officials said that some unidentified armed men riding a motorcycle threw a hand-grenade near Dubai Chowk and managed to escape.
They suspected that the Lyari gangsters were behind the incident. Further investigation was underway.