7 Rimpa Plaza NGO workers’ killers held after six years
KARACHI: Karachi city is no stranger to gruesome crimes, but the murder of seven NGO workers in 2002 went down as particularly horrifying. Six years later, on Tuesday, however, the Crime investigation department (CID) police arrested three suspects of the ‘Tehreek-e-Islami Lashkar-e-Mohammadi’ in a raid in Korangi.
This organization has been propagating hate against non-Muslim charity workers and is suspected of being behind the killings of fifteen people, including seven Christian employees of Idara-e-Amn-o-Insaaf, in Rimpa Plaza, on September 25, 2002. Its ringleader Wajahat wanted them to target Jewish charity workers and people he suspected were Freemasons.
“We were trying to catch them since we arrested ten members of this organization earlier,” said SSP Raja Umer Khattab. “They had confessed during interrogations but we could not say anything to the media.”
A police informer luckily tipped them off on Feb 26. A raid at Akhtar Colony Signal yielded Zubairuddin alias Sherjil, Asif alias Pasha alias Pashu and Mohammad Atif.
The men allegedly used poison to throw the police off and tried to make the incident look like a robbery. In the Rimpa Plaza case, they allegedly used poison but when they fell short, were compelled to use guns.
In 2000, Wajahat, a resident of Korangi, had preached against what he said were Jewish NGOs working in Pakistan against Islam. He stopped work in Pakistan and went to the UK and Nepal where he met with Mohammad Hassan, who was educated in England. In 2007, he was came Karachi and started live with his family in Gulistan-e-Johar. The organization was reorganized and they allegedly robbed wireless sets from Japan Plaza, and killed three important personalities, Liaquat Hussain, the vice president National Bank of Pakistan, Dr Hameedullah and Feroz Dara.
The police added that on May 22, 2002, Wajahat and three men went to a spare parts shop within the jurisdiction of Preedy Police Station and killed Aven Adven, the chairman of the ‘Amn-o-Insaaf Baraee Christian and Catholic Community’. On June 6, 2002, they took people hostage in Defence and later killed a man named Tariq Allahwallah, a district governor of the Rotary Club, with poison. On August, 16/17, 2002:, they killed Dr Mehboob Ali and Malik Hoshiyar Ali in a Gulshan office. Wajahat suspected that they were Freemasons.
According to the police, accused Zubair lived in Shah Faisal Colony and works as a furniture maker. His family had links to the Afghan Jihad since 1990 one they lost a son, Ameeruddin, to it in 1995. Another brother died while learning to make a bomb in a Korangi graveyard in 1998. He was basically linked to the banned ‘Harkatul Nisar’.
Accused Asif is the resident of Landhi No. 6 and is a brother-in-law and cousin of Wajahat. He is married and was worked as a mechanic in a textile mill.
Accused Atif, a resident of Korangi No. 6, was a butter supplier. He joined Jaish-e-Mohammad when it was newly formed by Maulana Masood Azhar in 2000.
Source: Daily Times
Date:2/27/2008
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