The Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of the Islamabad Police have launched search operations in the slums of Islamabad to trace the perpetrators involved in the violent attacks on police and its installations during the three-day protests that followed the arrest of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan.
According to the sources, in addition to tracking down those who carried out attacks on the police and damaged public and private properties, the CTD Islamabad teams have also been given the task to carry out door-to-door (knocking) search in the slums of the capital to find out the possible hideouts of the terrorists. This comes in the wake of intelligence reports following the recent rise in terrorist activity in various parts of the country.
For the sake of carrying out the search operations, the CTD has organised as many as six distinct teams, each of which is comprised of officers and officials. In addition to tracking down those responsible for the arson on May 9, the teams will also update the data that was collected as part of the Prevention of Violent Extremism (PVE) initiative that was initiated by the CTD Islamabad a few months ago.
Through the PVE programme, the police have been maintaining a database of the students and teachers of religious seminaries, as well as foreigners residing in various parts of the city, and the religious scholars who have been found to be participating in unlawful activities and providing hate speeches. In addition, the police have been keeping track of the data of religious scholars who have been found to deliver hate speeches.
Police is searching door to searching in Islamabad
According to the sources, the search operation that involved going door-to-door was being carried out under the direction of the deputy superintendent of police (operations).
In the meantime, the sources have revealed that the police have been unable in identifying a number of the criminals who were discovered to be involved in the violent occurrences that occurred on May 9. This is despite the fact that they have sought assistance from Nadra (the National Database and Registration Authority) and the Safe City programme.
They stated that the police had provided images of 80 individuals suspected of setting fire to the SP Office in the Industrial Area of Islamabad; however, thus far they had only been able to identify a small number of those individuals. They stated that the data of a significant portion of these individuals could not be located with Nadra, which suggests that these people do not originate from Pakistan.
The search operation in the G-8 area is currently being conducted by the CTD teams, and it will continue there for the next three days.
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