General Alvi's murder mystery solved

KARACHI - The mystery behind the assassination of Major General (R) Ameer Faisal Alvi, the former General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the elite Special Services Group of the Pakistan Army, has been finally unearthed. Major (R) Haroon Rashid, arrested by Islamabad police, has confessed that he had assassinated General Alvi when the latter was on the way at Islamabad Superhighway along with his driver Tanvir. Deceased was going to his Islamabad office on November 19 2008, when unidentified gunmen intercepted his car on Islamabad Highway within the jurisdiction of Koral police station and opened indiscriminate firing on it killing Alvi and his driver Tanvir on the spot. Islamabad police arrested accused Rashid when he was transferring a kidnapped man to Waziristan. During interrogation, he revealed that his brother, Capitan Khurram, who had joined a militant organisation after leaving the army, was killed by international security forces in Afghanistan. Rashid further confessed that he had kidnapped four people, two from Punjab and one, Staish Anand, from Karachi in order to get money for militant organisations. Source privy to the matter told that accused Haroon Rashid had confessed that he killed General Alvi in revenge of the murder of his brother. The accused had connections with militant groups operating tribal areas including Taliban and al-Qaeda. Authorities investigating the case revealed that accused Major (R) Rashid used to work for Harkatul Mujahideen. Rashids accomplice, Major (R) Abdul Basit, has also been arrested from Bahadurabad, Karachi, a few weeks ago under similar charges. Deceased Major General Faisal Alvi was forcibly retired from the Army on disciplinary grounds by then COAS General Musharraf in August 2005. Alvi had been involved in several mily operations conducted by the SSG commandos in Waziristan and was on the hit list of the extremist groups.

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