Daily Times

PESHAWAR: The Federal Investigation Agency on Sunday claimed to have arrested a commander of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) from Peshawar airport.

The TTP commander, identified as Maulvi Bahadar Jan, was arrested as he was about to board a flight for Dubai from Bacha Khan International Airport, according to the Federal Investigation Agency spokesperson.

The FIA spokesperson said that Jan was arrested after a routine document examination showed that his name was on the Exit Control List.

The suspect was wanted by law enforcing agencies for his involvement in a number of terrorist acts.

Earlier, in separate incidents, the Counter-Terrorism Department had arrested a commander and several affiliates of the proscribed outfit.

According to the CTD, the TTP commander was held in a raid at the City Railway Colony on June 4. The suspect was a commander of the banned organisation from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Buner district, CTD officials said, adding that the suspect was involved in bomb attacks on police check posts and an attack on the Frontier Corps camp in Buner.

On May 5, CTD officials arrested four terrorism suspects from the city during multiple raids. The suspects were identified as Kamran, Abdul Rauf, Kaiftan, and Irshad – with aliases Huzaifa, Abu Rizwan, Kifayat, and Zakariya, respectively.

CTD in-charge Chaudhry Safdar told the media that the suspects were were rounded up during raids conducted in SITE area and near University Road. He said receipts of chanda (donations) collected by the suspects were also seized during the raid.

Published in Daily Times, June 19^th 2018.