KARACHI: The District South police arrested four activists of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an allegedly militant wing of Sipah-e-Sahabah, and recovered weapons from them claiming that they were involved in the assassination of prominent figures from rival sects, senior police officers said on Monday.

Addressing the press conference at the offices of the DSP Clifton, the SSP, South, Iqbal Mehmood, said that the police, while following a secret tip, nabbed three of the five accused from the Bath Island vicinity and then on their disclosure, caught two of their accomplices.

He named the accused as Arshad Ali, alias Javed, Imran Hameed, Muhammad Muzammil, alias Chacha, Mansoor Ahmed, alias Shahid Mulaish, and alleged that accused were affiliated with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

He said that three pistols and a mouser were recovered from them. The district police chief claimed that the accused confessed to the investigators that they were involved in sectarian killings which took place in various parts of the city during the bloody years of 1994-95.

The SSP told reporters that accused Arhsad and Imran disclosed that they assassinated Dr Muhammad Ali and Shamim Haider in New Karachi, Salim Ahmed and Shahid in New Town and Fahim Abbas in Nazimabad during 1994-95.

He also claimed that the accused also confessed that they helped out their accomplices Asif Ramzi, Dilawar and Ata-ur-Rehman in the recent sectarian killings of Advocate Waqar Naqvi, Dr Sibtain Dosa and a telephone exchange employee in Baghdadi.

They, the police said, disclosed that Ata-ur-Rehman was responsible for providing arms and ammunition to the group for the killings and other militant operation and was acting as their ringleader here.

Police officers further said that the accused wanted to assassinate some more personalities including Dr Adib-ul-Hasan Rizvi, Dr Zafar Naqvi of Malir, and others. The police said that the accused also disclosed that the most wanted terrorists of the Punjab, Riaz Basra, was present in the city during the month of Muharrum-ul-Harram and most probably attended the main procession brought out from Nishtar Park. The police said that they have registered the cases against the accused and were interrogating them for further disclosures.