Karachi:
Campus Terror
Tushar
Ranjan Mohanty
Research Associate; Institute for Conflict Management
In the
morning of September 2, 2017, two terrorists carried out
an attack targeting Muttahida Qaumi Movement–Pakistan
(MQM-P) leader,
Khwaja Izharul Hassan, killing two persons, including
one of his guards and a child in the vicinity, and injuring
another two in the Buffer Zone area of Karachi (Karachi
District), the provincial capital of Sindh. Khwaja Hassan,
who is also the leader of the Opposition in the Sindh
Assembly, survived the assassination attempt unhurt. According
to details the assailants clad in Police uniforms and
riding on a motorcycle opened fire on Hassan when he was
leaving a mosque after offering Eid-ul-Adha [Islamic
festival of sacrifice] prayers. Ansar-ul-Shariah Pakistan
(ASP) in a Tweet on September 3 claiming responsibility
for the attack, alleged that Khawaja Hassan was a “pro-American
MQM leader”.
Meanwhile,
Police and Pakistan Rangers Sindh raided various houses
in the Kaneez Fatima Society of the Gulzar-i-Hijri area
of Malir Town, Karachi, on September 4, following information
about the presence of the attackers involved in the assassination
attempt. In the ensuing exchange of gunfire between the
terrorists and Security Force (SF) personnel, one Policeman
and a terrorist, identified as Hassan Israr, were killed.
The other terrorist, Abdul Karim Sarosh Siddiqui, present
at the encounter site, managed to escape. The slain Hassan
Israr worked as a lab technician in the Dawood University
of Engineering and Technology (DUET) in Karachi. He belonged
to an educated family and his father, Ahsan Israr, is
a lecturer at an educational institute. According to Rao
Anwar, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Malir Town
(Karachi District), the fleeing terrorist, Siddiqui, was
the mastermind of attack: "He is central commander
of banned militant organisation Ansar-ul-Shariah and close
associate of killed terrorist, Hassan." Siddique
was a student of Applied Physics at the University of
Karachi in 2011.
On September
4, 2017, Police took Sarosh Siddiqui's father, Sajjad
Siddiqui, a retired professor of the University of Karachi,
into their custody. On Sajjad's revelations, Police also
arrested ASP Karachi chapter's ‘spokesperson’ and another
dozen ASP cadres during various raids in Gulzar-e-Hijri,
Defence Housing Authority, Super Highway, and Sachal areas
of Karachi, on the same day.
Further,
on September 5, SFs arrested ASP ‘chief’, Dr. Abdullah
Hashmi aka Shehryar (28), in an intelligence-based
operation conducted at Kaniz Fatima Society in the Gulzar-i-Hijri
area of Malir Town in Karachi. Dr, Hashmi is an information
technology (IT) expert and was employed in the Computer
Department of the Nadirshaw Eduljee Dinshaw University
of Engineering and Technology (NEDUET), Karachi. He received
a Master’s degree in Applied Physics from the University
of Karachi.
During
the interrogation Dr. Hashmi told investigators ASP had
been formed in 2015 and made several attempts to link
up with global terror outfit al Qaeda after establishing
contacts with one of its operatives in Karachi, Abdullah
Baloch, on an unspecified date. However, the group was
advised to generate funds and operate by themselves.
Dr. Hashmi
also disclosed that he had been residing in Karachi till
2012 but left for Afghanistan following a raid at his
residence. He admitted receiving weapons training in the
Shorawak area of Helmand Province, Afghanistan and that
his group comprised of 10 to 12 people, mostly students
from University of Karachi, DUET, and NEDUET. He confessed
his group was targeting
Police personnel
to ‘receive recognition’ and prove its mettle. Commenting
on the slain assailant who attacked MQM-P leader Khwaja
Hassan, Shehryar stated that Hassan had also been trained
in Afghanistan.
According
to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism
Portal (SATP) ASP has been found involved in at least
five terror attacks, resulting in nine deaths (seven SF
personnel and two civilians) and three persons injured
(two civilians and one SF) since its formation 2015. SFs
have neutralized 10 ASP terrorists. The name of this outfit
first emerged publicly on April 5, 2017, when it claimed
responsibility for the targeted killing of Army Colonel
(Retd) Tahir Zia Nagi at the Baloch Colony, Karachi.
The involvement
of young educated youths from the mainstream-education
system in terrorism is not a new phenomenon in Karachi
and is not limited to ASP. There have been several such
instances in the past. Saad Aziz, affiliated to Islamic
State (IS), who was involved in the
Safoora Goth bus massacre
in Karachi, was a student of the Institute of Business
Administration (IBA), Karachi. Aziz was arrested on May
20, 2015, from the SITE area of Karachi and was tried
by a military court; he is now on death row for his involvement
in Bus massacre on May 13, 2015, in which 47 Ismaili Shias
were killed and another 13 were injured. He was also convicted
on the charge of murder of the prominent Pakistani women’s
rights activist
Sabeen Mahmud
on April 24, 2015. Two others who were arrested along
with Aziz on May 20, 2015, were Mohammad Azfar Ishrat
aka Maajid and Haafiz Nasir aka Yasir. Ishrat
is an engineer who had passed out from the Sir Syed University
of Engineering and Technology and had expertise in bomb-making.
He was involved in terrorist activities since 2011. Haafiz
Nasir, who completed Master of Arts (MA) in Islamic Studies
from University of Karachi, had been involved in terrorist
activities since 2013.
Similarly,
Noreen Leghari (19), a second-year Bachelor of Medicine
and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) student of Liaquat University
of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS) in Jamshoro District
of Sindh, was implicated for her ties with the IS. Leghari
was arrested on April 14, 2017, during a raid on an IS
hideout in the Punjab Housing Society in the Factory Area
of Lahore, in which one militant, Ali Tariq (32), was
killed while four soldiers, including two officers, were
wounded in the exchange of gunfire. The IS terrorists
were planning an attack on the Christian religious festival
of Easter on April 16. Leghari claimed on May 8, 2017,
that she was being held captive by Ali Tariq to be used
as suicide bomber. During a confessional interview on
Channel 92 News, she said,
When I was told that I was to be used as a suicide
bomber, I objected and told them I was only interested
in migration [to Syria]. But I was told … You must
do it. Just chant 'Allah o Akbar' (God is Great)
and explode your suicide vest. When the army raided
our house, I was rescued.
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Noreen
Leghari is the daughter of Dr. Abdul Jabbar Leghari, Professor
at the Dr. M.A. Kazi Institute of Chemistry in Jamshoro.
Noreen Leghari had reportedly run away from Hyderabad
(Sindh) to Lahore on February 10, 2017, hoping to join
IS in Syria. She came to Lahore to meet Ali Tariq, a resident
of Baidian Road, Lahore, whom she had contacted through
social media. On reaching Lahore they got married and
started living in rented a house in the Punjab Society.
Alarmed
over the growing involvement of university students’ in
terrorist activities in Karachi, the Sindh Police’s Counter-Terrorism
Department (CTD) summoned the Vice-Chancellors of 11 universities
in Karachi on July 9, 2017, in a bid to counter extremism
and terrorism. CTD Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP)
Raja Omar Khattab, however, clarified, “Basically, we
have not summoned the vice-chancellors, but invited them
to join us so we can brief them on serious matters.”
Later,
on July 12, 2017, CTD organised a seminar titled ‘Growing
radicalisation in educational institutions’ at the Central
Police Office in Karachi which was attended by Vice Chancellors
and other officials of around 40 varsities, both private
and public. Speaking at the seminar, CTD chief Additional
Inspector General (IG) Dr. Sanaullah Abbasi noted,
Radicalisation [is] growing at academic institutes
with the CTD assessing that the next generation
of militants [is] more likely to have university
education rather than a madrassa background.
The recent cases of Noreen Leghari and Saad Aziz
gave credence to this theory.
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CTD Senior
Superintendent of Police (SSP), Operations, Munir Ahmed
Shaikh further pointed out, “Small pockets of radicalisation
[are] emerging in academic institutes. There [is] a thin
line between preaching and radicalisation.”
CTD’s SSP
(Intelligence) Omar Shahid Hamid added that the Department
had assessed that youth who had been radicalised at academic
institutions were “sophisticated and trained” and warned,
“Radicalisation is growing and we fear that the militants
are more likely to emerge from secular academic institutes.”
During
the July 12 seminar, leading academicians had called for
a coordinated and strong policy to check the extremism
that they believed was not limited to conventional madrasas
(seminaries) but could now be found in reputed public
and private educational institutions, negating the ‘myth’
that radicalisation was a product of poverty and illiteracy.
Questions were raised about the efficacy of intelligence
agencies in curbing radicalisation despite their presence
on campuses. Dr. Roshan Rashidi Acting Vice Chancellor
of of DUET questioned the role of 10-12 intelligence agencies’
personnel operating at each Varsity, if they could not
detect extremism and terrorism there. Mohammad Salih,
Director of the People’s Medical University in Nawabshah
District, argued that agencies’ personnel were ‘interfering’
in their administration and financial affairs, but were
not fulfilling their role in preventing militancy on campus.
The State
apparatus has long been aware of growing radicalisation
among the youth in educational institutions as well as
of militant outfits luring educated students to join them.
The recent incidents, however, demonstrate the Government’s
comprehensive failure to curb the growing menace.
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