KARACHI: The police’s Counter Terrorism Department on Tuesday claimed to have arrested two suspected militants of the banned Sindh Revolutionary Army (SRA) for their alleged involvement in terrorism activities.

DIG-CTD Omar Shahid Hamid told a press conference at his office that suspect Mumtaz Soomro was arrested in a joint operation with Rangers and intelligence agencies from Tariq Road.

“He was planning a bomb attack with a remote-controlled magnetic device on the vehicle of a foreign restaurant owner,” he said. “When we interrogated him, he led us to the magnetic device and remote control, which were recovered from a motorbike parked in front of the restaurant,” he said.

Upon further investigation, another suspect, said to be the ‘commander’ of the banned SRA in Karachi, Javed Mangrio was also arrested and a grenade was recovered from him.

“Both the arrested terrorists have confessed to their involvement in a number of terrorist activities including an attack on Sub-Inspector Amir Riaz in Shah Latif Town in a bid to take revenge of Irshad Ranjhani murder in 2020,” he added.

The suspects, he said, on the instructions of SRA ‘commander’ Sajjad Shah had provided four AK-47 rifles and bullets to the militants of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) for carrying out an attack on the Pakistan Stock Exchange last year.

“They were also involved in a grenade attack on a Rangers vehicle near Kamran Chowrangi in Gulistan-i-Jauhar in June 2020,” said DIG Hamid.

He said that the held suspects were also involved in grenade attacks on Rangers headquarters in Shikarpur and Jacobabad, a Jamaat-i-Islami rally in Karachi and on Independence Day celebrations in Gulshan-i-Hadeed.

“They also attacked PTI’s Haleem Adil Shaikh but fortunately they couldn’t succeed. Besides, they were involved in a number of other terrorist activities and transportation of arms and ammunition,” he said.

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2021