Terrorists released in Pakistan due to lack of evidence:Report

New Delhi, Jan 11 (PTI) The failure of the Pakistani
police and security agencies to gather sufficient evidence has
led to the release of a large number of dreaded terrorists of
outfits such as Al-Qaeda and Taliban who are known to have
participated in major attacks in Pakistan, a report said.

What is more worrying is that most of them have vanished
into thin air soon after their release and were probably
planning or participating in more attacks, the report said.


At least a dozen of those released due to lack of
evidence are those involved in failed assassination bids on
former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, including one in
collaboration with some Pakistan Air Force officers in 2003,
it added.


Quoting statistics of Pakistan's Crime Investigation
Department (CID), the report published in the Pakistani
magazine 'The Herald' said that in the Sindh province alone,
as many as "121 high-profile terrorists were released between
2002 and 2007. In each case, the prosecution's case was not
strong enough".


Maintaining that the CID had prepared a list of such
terrorists, the report titled 'Catch and Release', said among
these 121 terrorists, 40 belonged to Sipah-e-Sahaba, 21 to
Harkatul Mujahedeen, 19 to the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, 15 each from
Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkatul Mujahedeen al-Almi, eight from
Sipah-e-Mohammed, two from Hizbul Tahrir and one from the
Taliban.


It quoted an unnamed senior CID official as saying, "if
you collect the list of militants from the remaining three
provinces (of Pakistan), I am sure the number of those who are
released would exceed several hundreds."

"The majority of these boys are hardcore militants and I
do not think they are the kind to be living a normal life. I
will not be surprised if they are planning more attacks,"
another officer was quoted as saying.

Among those released is one Sharafat Ali, also called
Khalid Fauji, who is linked to Al-Qaeda and was the
"architect" of two assassination bids on Musharraf in 2003 as
well as the kidnap and murder of American journalist Daniel
Pearl.

The first attack on Musharraf was "coordinated with some
junior officials of the Pakistan Air Force, who were
indoctrinated and then recruited through a mosque preacher",
the report said.

The magazine named several terrorists, charged with
serious violent crimes but released due to lack of evidence.

These included Sajid Jabbar alias Buddha of
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi who was alleged to have been involved in
Daniel Pearl's kidnap and murder, Sheikh Mohammed Athar alias
Khalid Memon accused of carrying out a series of strikes in
Karachi, Syed Ahmar Kazmi of Harkatul Mujahedeen al-Almi
allegedly involved in several terror attacks including one on
the Macedonian Consulate in Karachi and Hafiz Khalid of
Sipah-e-Sahaba who allegedly carried out attacks on Shia
mosques.

Many of them have "fallen off the radar of the security
agencies", the report said.

According to information obtained by the magazine,
militants accused of carrying out a failed assassination bid
on Musharraf in 2002 were released. They included one Hanif
Khan and one Zafar Iqbal.

While Khan, who hails from Nazimabad area of Karachi, is
"a trained commando and an expert in explosives", Iqbal, the
son of a retired Commodore of the Pakistan Navy, has trained
Kashmiri militants at camps inside Afghanistan, it said.

"According to (CID) officials, he (Iqbal) too is hiding
in the tribal areas, where he is still training new recruits
to militant ranks," it said.

The report quoted CID and law enforcement agency
officials as saying that the rate of conviction of those
arrested was "less than ten per cent at best". They added that
"our poor investigation system" leads to failure in getting
them convicted. PTI ARC
RKM
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