PNS Mehran attack: Killed terrorists were foreigners
19 June, 2011
KARACHI: Startling disclosures emerged in the PNS Mehran probe after the DNA report confirmed that the killed militants were not on the Nadra database and could be foreigners.
Last month, armed terrorists had attacked the PNS Mehran base situated at Sharea Faisal in which law-enforcement agencies personnel had killed four terrorists and recovered arms and other devices from their possession.
Moreover, those conducting the probe had not found any identification of the killed terrorists. They had called a Nadra team from Islamabad who took samples of the feet and fingerprints of the killed terrorists but had still found no satisfactory results.
During the probe, the investigators had sent samples to an Islamabad laboratory for the DNA sampling of the killed terrorists. For the first time, they had asked the authorities concerned to include the caste and racial origin of the killed suspects.
The concerned department had taken time to ascertain these facts, and on Saturday they sent a report to the Sindh Police department about the origin, ethnicity and the family connections of the killed militants.
SSP Niaz Ahmed Khosa, one of the senior members of the probe team, while talking to our sources said that he had received the DNA test report of the killed militants which states that all the four militants were “not Pakistanis”. This, he said, explains why Nadra could not find their data.
He added that the killed terrorists could be of Eurasian origin, and their blood traces revealed family relations between the four. Moreover, they were ascertaining more facts about the killed terrorists and their links to militant organizations.
Other investigation sources said that the terrorists who attacked the PNS Mehran base were four in number and after targeting the P-3C Orion aircraft moved forward and attempted to target the Chinese engineers. Luckily the engineers had been rescued and at the time of the attack were being moved to a safe place.
They added that the driver of the car was an expert who saved the engineers from being hit by gunshots. Examination of the car in which the engineers were shifted revealed many bullets marks and it was badly damaged, which shows that the militants might have targeted the Chinese engineers. A further probe is underway.
Meanwhile, according to sources, the investigators have sent the DNA samples to the FBI and requested them to verify whether the attackers were on the US agency’s database.
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