‘Farooqi could have been taken alive’

By Ahmed Raza

HYDERABAD: Amjad Farooqi, terrorist and alleged mastermind of the attacks on President Pervez Musharraf, was killed without any exchange of fire and was empty-handed when he was gunned down on Sunday, eyewitnesses told Daily Times in Nawabshah on Tuesday.

They said Farooqi died after lying critically injured for at least 30 minutes before the security personnel approached him. The raiders had feared his body could be booby-trapped.

The man with a Rs 20-million bounty on his head would have been a trophy if he had received immediate medical attention and been captured alive. This reporter visited the house in which two accomplices were arrested before Farooqi was killed. Two women and three children were also in the house at the time of the incident.

A security official who was witness to the incident but asked not to be named, said Farooqi was unarmed and that there had been no exchange of fire during the action, which lasted from 10am to 1pm.

During these three hours the security forces kept firing in the air to warn the inmates to come out of the house, and the bullets that felled the alleged terrorist were the only ones that targeted someone.

The security forces had avoided entering the house because they feared resistance from those inside, the source said. A computer and many floppy discs and CDs were among the things seized from the house, the source said.

The security official later said they seized three hand-grenades from inside the house, which the terror suspect did not use.

There were at least 13 spent teargas shells there, with the fumes still so strong it was still impossible to stay a few minutes inside the house 48 hours after the raid. There were no pockmarks left by bullets inside or outside. Nor did the building across the road, which houses a clinic, show traces of an exchange of gunfire.

“Farooqi was without a beard and it looked as if he had shaved it off minutes before the action began,” he said.

The source said the security officials repeatedly demanded that the suspects surrender. Even the teargas did not compel Farooqi to come out, he said.

Farooqi came out after three hours covering his face with a veil, loudly reciting Quranic verses, and asked the raiders to kill him, telling them he would not surrender at any rate.

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