ISLAMABAD - The law enforcement agencies (LEAs) on Wednesday claimed to have arrested two terror suspects belonging to a militant outfit involved in the deadly attack at Islamabad district courts on Monday that left at least 11 people dead.
The reported arrests were made following a police encounter in the suburbs of Attock on Tuesday night, highly placed security official told this correspondent. The reported terrorists are said to have direct linkages with Ahrar-ul-Hind, which, the source said, is a split faction of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
According to a reliable source in the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probing the Islamabad incident, two terror suspects involved in the deadly attack looked like Uzbek militants associated with the TTP and it is, he said, under investigation how they managed to break into the highly secured and posh sectors of Islamabad.
“Both the militants are Punjabi Taliban and real brothers, and they founded Ahrar-ul-Hind,” the official shared, adding they have a direct hand in the attack that took place in Islamabad.
One of the main targets of the militants, the source further shared, was the Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) Judge Atiq-ur-Rehman who narrowly escaped the attack due to the reason that his court room was shifted from the place following an intelligence agency’s report just a few days before.
“Ahrar-ul-Hind is funded from across the border. Certain groups of Taliban had trained the militants of this outfit outside Pakistan to carry out gorilla attacks in Pakistan’s urban areas,” the officials said.
Ahrar-ul-Hind was formed when TTP activists were divided after the death of Hakimullah Mehsud.
A commander of banned militant outfit shared with this correspondent that the newly formed group derived its name from “Ahrar” because the Ahraris were against the formation of Pakistan and they believed that the entire subcontinent was their motherland. They plan to expand the fight to “the remaining part of subcontinent, India and Occupied Kashmir,” the commander explained the AH manifesto.
Apart from the TTP, Ahrar-ul-Hind has reported ties with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Jundallah.
A neighbouring country, sources believe, has been involved in training the Ahrar-ul-Hind militants, who have fought alongside the TTP against the Pakistan army and LEAs.
“Practically, Ahrar-ul-Hind and TTP are the two facets of the same coin even though they have apparently parted ways. The militants of both the terrorist outfits always stick together. In most of the cases, they even sleep and eat together under one roof, besides receiving militant training together to fight against Pakistan’s Armed Forces.”
However, surprising was a statement, reported by a section of the media quoting Maulana Sami-ul-Haq that the Taliban themselves did not know “who the hell” Ahrar-ul-Hind is (Ahrar-ul-Hind kis bala ka naam hai). The Maulana was also quoted as saying that the TTP was trying to track the AH and rather they had tracked them using Facebook.