| |
|
Sindh Timeline- 2008


|
Month/Date
|
Incidents
|
|
January 14
|
11 persons, including two children, were killed
and more than 50 persons wounded in a bomb blast in the industrial
Landhi suburbs of Gul Ahmadpur in Karachi. "The bomb was planted
on a motorbike and exploded outside a textile factory in the Landhi
district of Karachi," said senior police official Mohammed Javed.
Muneer Ahmed Sheikh, an official of the Bomb Disposal Squad, said
the explosion had been caused by a homemade time bomb which contained
nails and ball bearings.
|
|
January 16
|
The Hyderabad police arrested three suspected
suicide bombers from the city. Police sources said that the three
men belonged to Swabi district in the NWFP, and could possibly
be suicide bombers. The suspects were between 15 to 17 years of
age and were planning to carry out subversive activities at the
time of arrest.
|
|
January 22
|
Security agencies arrested five suspected militants
in several raids in Karachi.
Jahangir Bhatti, a suspected militant who had
just arrived from Saudi Arabia, was arrested at the Karachi International
Airport and shifted to an undisclosed location. Yousaf Mehsud,
a close aide of Baitullah Mehsud — arrested on January 21 in Sohrab
Goth Police Station precincts — reportedly provided the information
about Bhattiti’s arrival. Police personnel also raided the house
of Aitzaz Shah, the 15-year old suspect arrested in the Benazir
Bhutto assassination case, in the Pirabad area and arrested his
father Zahir Shah and uncle Zohaib Shah. They later raided a madrassa
(seminary) at Old Golimar where Aitzaz Shah used to study before
leaving for Afghanistan, and arrested two suspected militants.
|
|
January 29
|
At least seven militants of the Jundullah group
and two police officials, including a Deputy Superintendent, were
killed in two encounters in the Landhi and Shah Latif Town areas
of Karachi. One of the slain militants was identified as Qasim
Toori, a 27-year-old former policeman, who was wanted for a June
2004 attack on the then Karachi Corps Commander in which 11 people
were killed. Five people were arrested including a man believed
to be from Uzbekistan.
The militants who were killed in Sector 89 of
the Landhi area had earlier escaped during a police raid on a
house behind the Bin Qasim Police Station during which an exchange
of fire also took place. Since a police message had already been
sent out about an encounter in Shah Latif Town, a police party
of Landhi Police Station also set out towards Shah Latif Town
and while it was on way, it intercepted the car of fleeing militants
near a petrol pump in Sector 89 of Landhi. While the militants
were killed and two police personnel injured in the encounter
at Landhi, two police personnel were killed in the encounter at
Shah Latif Town. Police said at the house they found a huge cache
of rocket-propelled grenades, rocket launchers, submachine guns,
25 kilograms of explosives and a bag of ball bearings, which are
often used for suicide bombings.
|
|
February 4
|
Unidentified gunmen opened fire on a Pakistan
People’s Party (PPP) election rally in Karachi, wounding one person.
600 suicide bombers are present in Karachi and
they are planning a major attack, revealed two militants Qasim
Toori and Danish alias Talha during interrogation by security
agencies. Most of the suicide bombers are reportedly former students
of Islamabad’s Lal Masjid. The militants confessed, "Around 600
Jundullah militants are present in Karachi. They are mentally
prepared and trained to commit suicide attacks." They also confessed
that they had robbed foreign banks and dispatched the money to
their headquarters in Wana in South Waziristan, from where their
needs for weapons, explosives and other necessities were being
met.
|
|
February 15
|
The Karachi Police arrested 10 members of a militant
organisation linked to the Taliban who were planning massive terrorist
attacks in the city during the elections. Addressing a press conference,
the Inspector General of Police Azhar Ali Farooqi said the militant
outfit, Tehrik-i-Islami Lashkar-i-Muhammadi, had ties with Mullah
Dadullah, Taliban commander Tahir and Sirajul Haq Haqqani. He
said the group was planning attacks on political and religious
leaders and philanthropists, adding that it had also obtained
lists of members of the Rotary and Lions clubs and Theosophical
Society. Farooqi disclosed that the arrested men were formerly
members of other banned outfits, like the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM)
and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), but after the Lal Masjid operation
they formed a group of their own because their former organisations
had ‘deviated’ from their mission.
|
|
February 17
|
A man, Gul Mohammad Bugti, was killed and four
others were wounded when their jeep hit a landmine in the Bhittai
Colony police station’s jurisdiction near Tangwani in Sukkur.
The Karachi Police arrested six members of the
Hizbut Tehrir while they were pasting posters near Shahra-e-Qaideen.
Geo News stated that the police arrested Ghulam Ali, Rizwan
Ali, Abdul Samad, Talha, Shirafat Ali and Muhammad Sajid, and
recovered a large number of posters from their possession. According
to the police, the posters read: "Change cannot come with
the present democracy and the enforcement of Caliphate is essential
for bringing about a change."
|
|
February 19
|
In Sindh, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) won
65 seats out of 125, while the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM)
and the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) got 38 and nine seats,
respectively. The Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) failed
to win a single seat while one independent candidate was successful.
|
|
February 26
|
Three members of a militant group have been arrested
by police for killing seven Christians in the office of the Idara
Amn-o-Insaf, a Christian charity organisation, on September 25,
2002. Acting on the basis of information extracted during the
interrogation of 10 activists of the Tehreek-i-Islami and Lashkar-i-Muhammadi
recently arrested by police, the CID arrested the three alleged
militants in Akhtar Colony. The three suspects were identified
as Zubairuddin alias Sharjeel, Asif alias Pasha and Mohammad Atif.
|
|
February 29
|
The banned Sunni group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan
(SSP) reportedly drew several hundred supporters near its headquarters
in Karachi as it denounced the blasphemous caricatures of the
holy Prophet published in some Danish newspapers, and declared
jihad against Denmark and the West if they continued to insult
Islam. It was the fist major public rally by the SSP since it
was banned in 2001. The SSP's protest took place after Friday
prayers at the SSP headquarters at Masjid-e-Siddique Akbar in
the Nagan Chowrangi area.
|
|
March 19
|
The Karachi Police arrested Mohammad
Kashif, an Intermediate student allegedly linked to the Taliban.
Police also claimed that he was a member of the HuMA. He was arrested
during a raid in Landhi and the police claimed to have recovered
weapons and equipment used to seal arms licenses. Kashif reportedly
stated that he went to Sialkot in Punjab province a while ago
with some friends, became "impressed" with their love for jihad
and then decided to go for "jihad training" over there.
|
|
March 27
|
Two officers of the Intelligence
Bureau believed to be involved in anti-Al Qaeda operations were
shot dead on a busy street near Regal Chowk in Karachi. Tahir
Naveed, a police officer, stated that it was apparently a case
of targeted killing.
|
|
April 25
|
Various defunct sectarian and
militant groups have started re-emerging in the country, especially
in Karachi, after remaining underground for the past several years.
Activists of some sectarian groups had carried out wall-chalking,
hoisted outfit flags and displayed posters to inform the public
about their activities, including gatherings in mosques in Karachi.
The channel also quoted sources in banned militant outfits as
saying that these organisations were active under new names and
venues, adding that they had recently held large rallies in Karachi.
According to the channel, jihadi groups like the HuM, HM
and Al-Badr have established new offices.
|
|