Ansarul Shariah chief among 8 killed in Karachi encounter

karachi — Pakistani paramilitary troops have killed eight militants of a group that tried to assassinate an opposition politician in Karachi, officials said on Sunday.

The Pakistan Rangers staged a joint raid with Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) officers in the Raees Goth neighbourhood on Saturday night after intelligence information about the presence of militants there, the Rangers’ spokesman for Sindh province, Major Qambar Raza, said.

“After an intense exchange of fire five terrorists were killed on the spot, while three others who were wounded, died late in hospital,” he said.

He said two militants whose identity has been established belonged to a newly formed group called Ansarul Shariah Pakistan (ASP) which was involved in the attempt to assassinate opposition politician Khawaja Izharul Hassan from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement in September.

Hassan was unhurt but the group killed a 10-year-old boy and a guard and wounded four others in the shootout last month.

Ansarul Shariah Pakistan chief Sheharyarud din — also known as Abdullah Hashmi — was among those killed in the raid, Raza said, describing him as the mastermind of the assassination bid.

Another of the suspected terrorists was identified by the Rangers as Arsalan Baig, a member of the ASP’s target-killing team.

A Rangers official told that one CTD personnel and two Rangers personnel sustained injuries. The Rangers also claimed to have seized explosive material, and arms.

According to various local media reports, Hashmi had been arrested during a raid in September.

There had been unconfirmed media reports about the arrest of Hashmi in September in a raid on his house in Kaneez Fatima Housing Society. In Karachi their activities were noticed for the first time in April when they claimed the responsibility for killing a retired colonel in the Baloch Colony area, but the ASP had been active before when its members had gunned down a guard of Police Foundation in an attack in Gulistan-i-Jauhar in February this year.

Apart from the four terror acts (killing of the security guard in Gulistan-i-Jauhar, retired army officer in the Baloch Colony area, murder of four policemen in Karachi’s SITE area, and an assassination attempt on life of the MQM leader), the officials also claimed that the ASP was involved in four other incidents.

These included targeted killing of two policemen, the murder of a DSP Traffic and his driver in Azizabad, a Police Qaumi Razakar on the Northern Bypass and two employees of the Federal Board of Revenue in Gulistan-i-Jauhar who were targeted over suspicions of being policemen as the victims wore uniforms resembling police uniform.— Agencies