Nationalists’ violence has overtaken religious militancy, says CTD chief

KARACHI: The violence allegedly perpetrated by the so-called nationalist groups has recently overtaken the violence committed by religious and sectarian outfits in Sindh. However, the situation may reverse if Afghanistan faces instability after the withdrawal of the US forces from there, said Counter-Terrorism Department DIG Omar Shahid Hamid on Thursday.

He was talking to the media at his office after launching a new edition of the Red Book containing names of alleged ‘most wanted’ terrorists.

“During the last 18 months, the violence committed by nationalist groups has overtaken jihadi violence,” said the counter-terror force chief.

He apprehended that the situation might change and jihadi elements may become active again if Afghanistan suffered instability after the US forces withdrew from there.

“Our assessment is that instability in Afghanistan might create a blowback factor and impact terrorism in Pakistan,” said the CTD chief.

Fresh edition of Red Book includes BLA, SRA chiefs and woman doctor among 93 ‘most wanted’ militants

Regarding the launch of the ninth edition of Red Book, he said it was being launched after a gap of around four years. It is for the first time that militants associated with the Baloch Liberation Army, Sindh Revolutionary Army and Lyari gang warfare had been included among the total 93 new names of the most-wanted suspects. They included BLA chief Hyrbyair Marri and SLA chief Asghar Shah.

“There are concrete pieces of evidence that the nationalist groups in collaboration with the Indian spy agency RAW and other hostile agencies are involved in terrorism,” said Mr Hamid.

He said that among the militants of banned religious and sectarian outfits, they had included the name of Dr Sadia Jalil, who is a resident of Karachi.

“She is a third wife of Omar Kathio, leader of the banned Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, who was involved in the Safoora carnage, and an aunt of the global militant Islamic State (Daesh) leader Abdullah Yusuf. She is a professional doctor and has been an absconder.”

Red Book entries

Red Book contains names of 12 militants linked with the IS, 18 with AQIS, 23 with TTP, 13 with Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, two with Jundullah, 24 with Sipah-i-Mohammad, four with SRA, five with BLA and 33 suspects linked with Lyari gang warfare. He recalled that the last Red Book was issued in 2017 and 10 suspects whose names were included had been arrested and five others were killed in ‘encounters’.

He said they had reports that two more suspects included in the book were killed in Afghanistan and Syria.

The CTD DIG said that Sindh, particularly Karachi, had been adversely affected by terrorism for the last several years where religious terror outfits, separatist groups and criminal gangs carried out different acts of terrorism –– targeted killings, bomb blasts, extortion etc. Because of these events, law enforcers, religious scholars, politicians and other important personalities were targeted.

“We have evidence about the involvement of foreign hostile agencies in these terror acts,” said the senior officer. Their motive was to tarnish the image of Pakistan in the world.

He said the CTD and other law-enforcement agencies had prepared a strategy to destroy networks of those groups.