Daily Times

KARACHI: The Intelligence think-tank of Counter Terrorism Department Sindh has now decided to redraw their line of approach to trace out the elements involved in recent police killings in the city after the surfacing two different pamphlets using the same name of newly emerged organization Ansar-ul-Shariah in two separate statements on one incident on Monday.

Intelligence setup of CTD is pondering to include city’s conventional militant wing into its focus of investigation, putting some examples from the near past into the view, reliable source have claimed.

On Monday, police had found the three bullet-riddled bodies of three men from the outskirts of the city.

Surprisingly, a newly emerged militant group Ansarul Shariah Pakistan (ASP) claimed the responsibility of the incident claiming that these three men were involved in the police killings in Karachi.

Interestingly, this was the same group which has claimed the responsibilities of at least five attacks on police personal in Karachi in 2017.

In the new pamphlet found along with the bodies, the killers have warned those who are using the name of the ASP and killings the police and the security personnel would be killed in the same manner if they continue such acts in near future.

“on the same day on the tweeter account of Ansar-ul-Shariah it had also uploaded this letter, claiming the responsibility of the killing, saying its members have killed these elements of police as they were busy in extortion from innocent citizens and this will be continue happing to others like them” Omer Shahid, SSP CTD told Daily Times.

While the pamphlets were found from the spot form where bodies were recovered, containing the write-up, “those involved in police killings are the supporters of the foreign spy agencies – RAW and Mossad but now they have been killed by the real Mujahideen and this was an revenge of the killings of the policemen in Karachi and such revenges would continue in the future. “We will not even leave their families if they continue to use our name and continue killing the policemen in Karachi,”

On the other hand a source from with in CTD has claimed that officials now have doubts on the status of Ansar-ul-Shariah’s social media page as-well-as the pamphlets, which are continuously, were being found from the spots.

“Now they have decided to include city’s local militant wing to be a factor for recent killings because in the recent past when election offices of local political party were targeted with bombs and hand grenades the responsibility of those attacks were claimed by TTP elements in Waziristan areas, latterly rangers has busted a group belonging to that political party and they have confessed that their own network was involved in those attacks” source further briefed.

Some three months ago, CTD officials first started to claim that a newly formed organization namely Ansar-ul-Shariah Pakistan had established its network in Pakistan as an off-shoot group of Al-Nusr, activated in Syria.

“We had some information about that newly emerged group as it activated in Karachi because some of the local fighters had came back to Pakistan from Syria and they have brought the legacy with them, besides that some pamphlets of this organization were found from the spot where police officials were targeted by terrorists in SITE area about two months ago” Omer claimed.

Teams of CTD had arrested and killed many activists of TTP Mufti Shakir Ullah and Qari Saifullah group who were believed to be involved in recent killings but killings have remained un-stoppable

“We could not deny the existence of ASP but at the same time we must not forget the legacy of city’s conventional modus-operandi of target killing and the elements that could achieve their own motives using the names and ideas of extremist elements to save their skin” source has claimed.

Published in Daily Times, August 23^rd 2017.