Karachi: Two killed as cell phone franchise comes under attack

KARACHI: As militants killed two staffers of an international cellular company in an attack on its franchise in North Nazimabad on Tuesday, police see the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) becoming active in the city.

A senior intelligence officer claimed that the TTP had once again become active in the metropolis and they are targeting the cellular franchises to extort money from their managements.

According to him, investigations from some detained TTP suspects revealed that they basically wanted to threaten the franchise owners in order to extort huge sums of money from them.

Three unidentified armed men barged into the Telenor franchise near the Golden Gate roundabout in North Nazimabad at 12:45pm and opened indiscriminate fire. As the police reached the spot, they found four people lying injured there. They took the wounded to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where two people, including a woman employee of the franchise, expired during treatment. They were identified as Faiza wife of Zeeshan and security guard Mazhar Butt.

The North Nazimabad police said that one of the attackers was also injured when his pistol accidentally went off. However, his accomplices managed to take him away in a car. The attackers were six in number and they were driving a Hi-roof van.

Faiza had been a receptionist at the franchise and a resident of Nazimabad No-1. Mazhar Butt was a resident of Orangi Town and had been working with the Rehman Security Company. He was deputed at the franchise some three months ago.

Police have obtained video footage of the incident in which three of the attackers can bee seen entering the franchise. All of them were wearing Shalwar Kameez. The franchise manager Shahzad luckily escaped the attack as he was in the washroom.

Police were coordinating with the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) to develop the sketches of the suspects. It was the second such attack on a Telenor office in the city. On December 23 last year, four militants had barged into the franchise of the same cellular firm in the Shadman area and killed two of its employees. The attackers had also set the premises on fire before escaping.

Later, another attack was carried out on a Mobilink franchise when the terrorists lobbed a hand grenade, causing injuries to some people. The Sindh police had formed a committee led by SSP CID Mohammed Fayyaz Khan that came to the conclusion that the TTP militants were behind these attacks.

On January 7, a CID team along with officials of an intelligence agency conducted a raid on a house in Gulshan-e-Jamal during which Syed Yaseen alias Saein alias Asghar Baloch was killed while his accomplice Syed Qadir Shah was arrested after an encounter.

The held suspect told the police that Yaseen was the TTP’s Balochistan commander, they were involved behind the attacks on cellular franchises.

The original article can be found at The News.

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