KARACHI - Law enforcement agencies (LEAs) have arrested at least six hardcore militants involved in the killing of policemen over the last two years or so while the group involved in the killing of 14 policemen recently still remains at large, The Nation learnt here on Tuesday.

Sources privy to the matter revealed that the Counterterrorism Department (CTD) had arrested six hardcore activists of Mufti Shakir group, involved in the killings of number of policemen killed in the last couple of years.

Sources disclosed to this scribe that some high-profile militants, operating in the city, had been arrested and remained in the custody of CTD for investigation.

They further divulged that those taken into custody had confessed to have killed scores of policemen in the last couple of years and that they would take orders from Mufti Shakir, who worked for different militants groups such as Tehreek-e-Taliban Jamat-ul-Ahrar, Jundullah and others. Shakir, however, who used to run a seminary, Madarassa Al-Karim Islamic Academy, in SITE area, still remains at large. The seminary has been sealed recently on the recommendations of CTD.

CTD has also picked up some seven students of the seminary for investigation and shifted them to unknown location for investigations. Sources said that the Mufti Shakir group had almost been eliminated, but another group, Ansar al Sharia, had recently emerged, and was using educated professionals having sharp minds.

Sources disclosed that the CTD teams had reached close to the arrests of militants hiding in the city after the fall of Mufti Shakir group. However, they also pointed out that militants hiding in the city could not be arrested without encounters. CTD chief Dr Sanaullah Abbasi, while talking to The Nation, expressed optimism that militant groups involved in the killings of police personnel would be busted in near future, as accomplices of Mufti Shakir had either been mostly arrested or killed in the last couple of months and the remaining would be arrested in near future.

He said that the newly established group Ansar al Sharia was a splinter group emerged with the help of old militant groups like Jundullah, Daesh, Lashker-e-Jhangvi, and was still out of the reach of law enforcement agencies.

Abbasi said that the activists of Ansar al Sharia were educated professionals, who operated cleverly and achieved their targets.

He said that TTP, Jamaatul Ahrar also facilitated the splinter groups operating in the city. He claimed that majority of high-profile cases had almost been resolved as the facilitators in Lal Shahbaz Qalander Shrine blast had also been arrested.

Abbasi also said that those who helped the inmates break the Central Jail had also been arrested, while both the militants who had escaped from the jail still remained at large.

He said that both of them were hiding in Balochistan, while teams had been dispatched for their arrest. “Hopefully they would also be held soon,” he added. Police officer revealed that the attacks on the police mobiles in New Town, SITE and Korangi, as well as the attack last night on the traffic constables, in Sachal are linked not only through a common pattern but also through matching of ballistics.