KARACHI - As many as five more persons, allegedly having ties with a militant outfit, were killed in an encounter with police here on Saturday. The five suspected militants were killed by the District Malir police.
District Malir police chief SSP Rao Anwar said that the encounter had taken place when police, on a tip-off, conducted a raid at Ayub Goth within the limits of Sohrab Goth police station. "We had intelligence-based information about the presence of terrorists," said SSP Rao. "All the slain militants were associated with the Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS),” he claimed. The SSP said that an exchange of fire between police and terrorists took place when the terrorists opened indiscriminate fire at the police party, adding that police also fired back with full force. “During the resultant exchange of fire, five militants were killed. Their bodies were later shifted to a morgue after medico legal formalities completed at Abbasi Shaheed Hospital,” he explained. SSP Rao said that one of the militants was identified as Qari Habibullah alias Abdus Salaam Burmi. "The terrorists killed were involved in target killings of soldiers, police officers, members of minority groups and opposite sects," he added.
He said that an Egyptian terrorist was also killed during an encounter at Al-Qaeda's headquarters in Karachi's Qayyumabad in 2003, adding that Habibullah had been arrested in 2003 raid and was later released on bail, but resumed the acts of terror by joining Daesh. Police also claimed to have recovered huge cache of arms and explosives. Cases were registered while further investigation was underway. It is worth mentioning here that a day before this encounter, the same police had arrested at least five terrorists belonging to banned sectarian outfit- Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.
One of them was the son of a police officer and another was brother of police personnel. The suspects remained in police custody before they were shifted to an undisclosed location.