Sources said the accused admitted that they were involved in the assassinations of PTCL official Altaf Husain Bangash, Ali Hasnain Naqvi of Imambargah-e-Hussainiya Sajjadiya, DG defence ministry Zafar Zaidi, Dr Ishrat Husain and Raza Mehdi. They also disclosed that before and after every killing, they used to offer Namaz-e-Shukr, considering their act as 'Ibadat', an ATW insider revealed. The month of September saw an upsurge in sectarian and politic-religious motivated terrorist strike. The city was jolted by three bomb blasts, 15 high-profile killings while about a score were wounded.

More than 70 doctors and 34 lawyers, various Ulema, scholars, teachers and students of seminaries, religious figures, politico-religious parties leaders and activists, officials of various government and private institutions have so far been assassinated during an upsurge of sectarian coloured terrorists' strikes in the last two years. In retaliation against terrorist strikes, 12-party Jafferiya Alliance (JA) had launched a court arrest campaign in September.

President Gen Musharraf, while taking serious notice of the terrorists' strikes, banned and issued warnings to Sipah-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in his speech to the nation on Independence Day.

During interrogations, the suspects also made some disclosures about the killing of Shaukat Mirza, MD, Pakistan State Oil. However, when contacted, DSP Farooq declined to comment. He neither denied nor confirmed the arrests saying that the progress in the investigation of high-profile killings would soon be made public.

On July 26 the managing director of PSO, Shaukat Raza Mirza, and his driver were shot dead in Clifton. The director research and laboratories, ministry of defence, Syed Zafar Husain Zaidi, aged 59, was shot dead near his Nazimabad residence on July 30.

Ali Hasnain Naqvi, prayer leader of Husainia Sajjadia Imambargah, was shot dead in Federal B-Area on Sept 4.

Altaf Husain Bangash, aged 45, a PTCL official, was shot dead on Sept 10 near his office at Pak Capital Telephone Exchange.

Dr Raza Mehdi Jafri was shot dead outside his ENT General Clinic in Block-16 in Gulshan-i-Iqbal on May 31, and Dr Ishrat Husain, aged 40, was shot dead on July 8 while he was on his way to his D'Silva Clinic and Medical Centre in Husain D'Silva Town, North Nazimabad.

Four Lashkar activists remanded to police custody

KARACHI Oct 1 2001: Justice Shabbir Ahmed of Sindh High Court, also the administrative judge for Anti-Terrorism Courts (ATC) for Karachi Division, on Monday remanded four alleged activists of banned organisation Lashkar-e-Jhangvi - Muhammad Shahid Hanif, Talha Hussain, Khalil and Haider Ali - to police custody till October 6.

The accused were allegedly involved in at least four high-profile sectarian killing cases in the city. The court ordered investigation officer of the case, Sub-Inspector Saeed Rind of the Anti-Terrorist Wing (ATW) of Karachi police, to submit their challan by October 6. All the accused were brought to Sindh High Court amid strict security.

The ATW, on a secret information, had raided a hideout of terrorists in North Nazimabad on September 30 and arrested four persons and recovered illegal weapons from their possession. During preliminary investigation, the accused disclosed that they are working with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and involved in various killing cases of sectarian nature. They also confessed their involvement in killing of a defence ministry official Dr Syed Zafar Hussain, divisional engineer of PTCL Altaf Hussain Bangash, Pesh Imam of an Imambargah, Allama Ali Hasnain Naqvi and Dr Raza Mehdi.

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