The Hindu : Front Page : Doubts grow on Hyderabad terrorist’s reported killing in Karachi shootout

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Tuesday, Sep 18, 2007
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Doubts grow on Hyderabad terrorist’s reported killing in Karachi shootout

Praveen Swami

Rumours of Shahed’s death could be disinformation, Pakistani police records suggest

Indian media claimed Shahed was eliminated by his ISI patrons
Police records say those killed in the Karachi shootout were locals

NEW DELHI: Pakistani police records, as well as independent investigations by journalists, have cast serious doubts on Indian media claims that a top terrorist wanted for last month’s twin bombings in Hyderabad has been killed in a Karachi shootout.

Over the past week, several Indian newspapers and television channels had reported the death of Harkat ul-Jihad-e-Islami terrorist Mohammad Abdul Shahed in a targeted killing in northern Karachi. Shahed, a former Hyderabad resident who is wanted by Interpol for his alleged role in a string of terror strikes, was said to have been killed while he and another member of his cell were riding a motorcycle.

Several of the media accounts claimed that Mr. Shahed was eliminated by his patrons in Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, to hide its role in financing and supporting the HuJI group he commands. The reports on Shahed’s death were claimed to be based on reports that appeared in the Pakistani media, as well as on information from sources in India’s intelligence services.

Police records

Karachi police records, accessed by The Hindu through privileged sources, confirm that three persons were killed in incidents of violent crime on August 30 — but all the three appear to be local residents. The Karachi-based Dawn also reported the killings on August 31.

However, neither its report nor official records contain information suggesting that any of those killed was an Indian national.

Fifty-year-old Mohammad Amir was shot dead while resisting an armed robbery near Khajoor Wali Gali, which is part of Karachi’s Kharadar police jurisdiction. Hours later, two men riding a motorcycle were shot dead with automatic weapons from point-blank range by masked assailants. Their bodies were shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where post-mortem established one had received eight gunshot wounds, and the other four.

While the Indian media accounts have claimed that Mr. Shahed was one of the two men on the motorcycle, the Karachi police records identify them as 33-year-old Ahmad Rafiq and 35-year-old Mohammad Aslam. Both men were residents of the Lasi Goth neighbourhood of northern Karachi — a fact journalists contacted by The Hindu were able to confirm after speaking with local residents.

Sindh Police Inspector-General Major (retired) Zia-ud-Din, has also denied the Indian media claims that either Mr. Rafiq or Mr. Aslam was in fact Mr. Shahed. Both men, he said, were Pakistani nationals well known among their communities. However, no motives have so far been officially ascribed for the killings, which may have been linked to the ongoing political and communal conflicts in Karachi.

Intelligence sources in New Delhi confirmed that there was mounting scepticism of the media claims on Mr. Shahed’s death, which was for the most part founded on rumours that swirled around Hyderabad a fortnight ago — rumours which some in India’s external intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing, felt were confirmed by the Karachi killings.

Unusual silence

“What I can say for a fact,” a senior intelligence official said, “is that we have had no confirmed sighting of Mr. Shahed for some two weeks, or signs that he initiated Internet or telephone communications with his subordinates. This silence is unusual. However, his associates in Karachi and Dhaka are still in their locations. Had their chief been killed by either the ISI or an Indian covert group, they would likely have dispersed.”

Moreover, the intelligence official said rumours of Shahed’s death have repeatedly surfaced in recent months.

“Deliberate effort”

In the weeks after the May bombing of the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad, some local media reported that Shahed had been killed in Pakistan – reports that were debunked when his role in last month’s twin bombing surfaced.

“Such rumours are more likely than not a deliberate effort to throw investigators off his track,” the official said.

Mr. Shahed’s family in Hyderabad has refused to comment on reports of his death, saying it has no knowledge. “If he had been killed,” a senior police official in Hyderabad said, “you can be pretty sure the family would have heard of it by now.”

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