KARACHI – The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of Sindh police on Mondayclaimed to have arrested three suspects with links to banned outfits, twoof whom were said to be “highly educated”.
One of the detained men had remained a faculty member at a publicuniversity in Dera Ismail Khan while another had graduated from a’prestigious’ institute in Karachi. The third suspect is a religiousscholar who provides online courses of the Holy Quran, revealed CTD SSPJunaid Ahmed Shaikh.
The varsity teacher had been allegedly involved in deadly attacks on Natoforces in Afghanistan, security forces in Pakistan and sectarian violencein the past, the senior officer added.
The three suspects, named Shahsawar, Mujeeb Rehman and Khalid Pervez, werearrested during raids conducted by the CTD in Karachi’s Sultanabad andJubilee areas. The police also seized donation chits from them, said SSPShaikh.
The men used to collect donations from different parts of the city fortheir respective outfits during Ramazan, the senior officer claimed.
Detained suspect Mujeeb Rehman, who is allegedly affiliated with the bannedLashkar-i-Jhangvi (LJ), was arrested by the CTD in the recent past as wellbut started working for the sectarian outfit again after being releasedfrom jail. Besides collecting donations, he was also responsible forrecruiting youngsters.
The second suspect, Khalid Pervez, is an IT expert who worked in a privatefirm in Karachi and had obtained an MBA degree from a renowned institute.He was affiliated with the militant Islamic State group.
Meanwhile, Shahsawar was a faculty member at a government varsity in DeraIsmail Khan, the officer claimed. He was allegedly an “important” member ofthe banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
The suspect along with his accomplices had targeted Nato forces, causing”significant losses” to their troops in Afghanistan, Shaikh claimed.Several of Shahsawar’s accomplices were killed in Afghanistan.
He had also remained a member of the ‘shura’ (consultation body) of TTP,the CTD officer disclosed.