Naseemullah (

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

, during a

fake encounter Encounter killing is a term used in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka since the late 20th century to describe extrajudicial killings by the police or the armed forces, supposedly in self-defence, when they encounter suspected gangsters or ...

staged by the

senior superintendent of police Superintendent (Supt) is a rank in the British police and in most English-speaking Commonwealth nations. In many Commonwealth countries, the full version is superintendent of police (SP). The rank is also used in most British Overseas Territories ...

(SSP) of Karachi's

Malir District Malir District ( sd, ) is an administrative district of Karachi Division in Sindh, Pakistan. Map of Karachi Division History Before the independence of Pakistan, there were small villages of Sindhi and Kalmati Baloch in the Gadap To ...

, Rao Anwar. On 3 January, Naqeebullah was kidnapped along with two of his friends, Hazrat Ali and Muhammad Qasim, by Rao Anwar's men in plainclothes from Gulsher Agha Hotel in Karachi. On 6 January, both of his friends were freed by the police, but Naqeebullah was kept in captivity, tortured, and then killed on 13 January in a fake encounter in which he was shot twice in the back. Alongside Naqeebullah, three other men namely Muhammad Sabir and Muhammad Ishaq from

Bahawalpur Bahawalpur () is a city in the Punjab province of Pakistan. With inhabitants as of 2017, it is Pakistan's 11th most populous city. Founded in 1748, Bahawalpur was the capital of the former princely state of Bahawalpur, ruled by the Abbasi fa ...

and Nazar Jan Mahsud from

South Waziristan South Waziristan District ( ps, سويلي وزیرستان ولسوالۍ, ur, ) was a district in Dera Ismail Khan Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa before splitting in to Lower South Waziristan District and Upper South Waziristan District and t ...

were also killed by the police in the staged encounter, the latter of whom was shot from a close range. On 17 January, Naqeebullah's dead body was handed over to his relatives at the

Chhipa Welfare Association Chhipa Welfare Association, commonly known as Chhipa, is a Pakistani non-profit welfare organization founded in 2007 by Ramzan Chhipa. It is headquartered in Karachi, Pakistan. The 1987 Karachi car bombing at Bohri Bazaar led Ramzan Chhipa ...

morgue in Karachi. On 18 January, his body was taken by his relatives to

Tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engin ...

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (; ps, خېبر پښتونخوا; Urdu, Hindko: خیبر پختونخوا) commonly abbreviated as KP or KPK, is one of the Administrative units of Pakistan, four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the Geography of Pakistan, ...

, where

Islamic funeral Funerals and funeral prayers in Islam ( ar, جنازة, Janazah) follow fairly specific rites, though they are subject to regional interpretation and variation in custom. In all cases, however, sharia (Islamic religious law) calls for burial ...

prayer was performed for him, and on the same day, he was buried at his hometown

Makeen Makeen ( ps, مکین) or Makin () is a city in South Waziristan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, on the boundary with North Waziristan. The boundary with Afghanistan's Barmal District, Paktika lies to the west. Makeen lies within the heartland of ...

, South Waziristan. The fake encounter sparked countrywide protests against

extrajudicial killing An extrajudicial killing (also known as extrajudicial execution or extralegal killing) is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, whether ...

s in Pakistan. Referring to the killings, the police alleged that they killed four suspected terrorists in a shootout. Rao Anwar claimed that Naqeebullah had links with the

Pakistani Taliban The Pakistani Taliban (), formally called the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (Urdu/ ps, , lit=Student Movement of Pakistan, TTP), is an umbrella organization of various Islamist armed militant groups operating along the Afghan–Pakistani bor ...

(Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP),

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ; ur, ) or "Army of Jhangvi", is a Deobandi Sunni supremacist, terrorist and jihadist militant organisation based in Afghanistan. The organisation operates in Pakistan and Afghanistan and is an offshoot of anti-Shia ...

(LeJ), and the

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant An Islamic state is a State (polity), state that has a form of government based on sharia, Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical Polity, polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a t ...

(Daesh). However, the claims were contested by Naqeebullah's relatives and human rights activists, especially the

Pashtun Tahafuz Movement The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM; ps, پښتون ژغورنې غورځنګ ''Paṣtūn Zhghōrənē Ghōrźang''; ur, , lit=Pashtun Protection Movement) is a social movement for Pashtun human rights based in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan ...

(PTM, or 'Pashtun Protection Movement'), which launched a campaign to seek justice for him. An inquiry committee consisting of senior police officers was formed to investigate the killing, which found Naqeebullah to be innocent, and declared that the alleged police encounter staged to kill him and three others was fake. Naqeebullah was survived by his wife, two daughters, and a son. On 24 January 2019, a Pakistani anti-terrorism court declared Naqeebullah and the three other persons murdered with him as innocent.

Background

Naqeebullah Mehsud

Naseemullah, usually known as Naqeebullah, was born in 1990 in the

Makin Tehsil Makin Tehsil is a subdivision located in South Waziristan district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The population is 58,700 according to the 2017 census. The main town is Makeen. Notable people *Mulla Powinda * alik Muhammad Nawaz Abdallai* alik H ...

. He belonged to the Abdullai

Mahsud The Mahsud or Mehsood ( ps, محسود), also spelled Maseed ( ps, ماسيد), is a Karlani Pashtun tribe inhabiting mostly the South Waziristan Agency in the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, now merged within Khyb ...

tribe of

Pashtuns Pashtuns (, , ; ps, پښتانه, ), also known as Pakhtuns or Pathans, are an Iranian ethnic group who are native to the geographic region of Pashtunistan in the present-day countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were historically re ...

. In 2009, his family was forced to flee their home due to

Operation Rah-e-Nijat The Operation Rah-e-Nijat ("Path to Salvation"; ur, آپریشن راہ نجات) was a strategic offensive military operation by the unified command of Pakistan Armed Forces against the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and their extremist al ...

by the

Pakistan Armed Forces The Pakistan Armed Forces (; ) are the military forces of Pakistan. It is the world's sixth-largest military measured by active military personnel and consist of three formally uniformed services—the Army, Navy, and the Air Force, which are ...

against the militants in South Waziristan. After migrating to

, Naqeebullah had been working as a labourer. He was passionate about modeling and was an aspiring model. He had three brothers, one of whom had settled in

Dubai Dubai (, ; ar, دبي, translit=Dubayy, , ) is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the 7 emirates of the United Arab Emirates.The Government and Politics of ...

UAE The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...

. Naqeebullah was planning to start a garment business and had rented a shop in

Sohrab Goth Sohrab Goth Town ( ur, سہراب گوٹھ ) is a suburban area in the Malir district of Karachi, Pakistan, that previously was a part of Gadap Town until 2011. It acts as an entry point to Karachi from the rest of Pakistan. There is a bridge ove ...

, Karachi just before being kidnapped and murdered.

Rao Anwar

Rao Anwar, a

(SSP) in the

of Karachi, led the team staging the fake encounter and was already known for carrying out controversial police encounters in Karachi. He was known as the "encounter specialist" of the

Sindh Police , nativenamea = , nativenamer = , commonname = , abbreviation = SP , fictional = , patch = , patchcaption = , logo = Sindh Police Logo.png , logocaption = , badg ...

Abduction of Naqeebullah and his friends

On the evening of 3 January 2018, Naqeebullah Mehsud and his two friends, Hazrat Ali and Muhammad Qasim, who had become friends with him via the social media website

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

, were out together in Sohrab Goth when they were abducted by men in plainclothes. Hazrat Ali said, “we were taken to Sachal police station first. We waited for 50 minutes, then a cloth was tied to our eyes and we were taken to an undisclosed location." Ali added, "we could hear that they took Naqeebullah first and he was being tortured. We could hear his screams. After Naqeebullah, the men came towards us

li and Qasim Li, li, or LI may refer to: Businesses and organizations * Landscape Institute, a British professional body for landscape architects * Leadership Institute, a non-profit organization located in Arlington, Virginia, US, that teaches "political te ...

and started to beat us up. After a while, the men forcefully put

naswar Naswār ( ps, نسوار, Cyrillic script: насва́р), also called nās (ناس; на́с) or nasvay (نسوای; насвай), is a moist, powdered tobacco dip consumed mostly in Afghanistan and surrounding countries. Naswar is stuffed in ...

down my throat. I couldn’t stop vomiting after that.” According to Qasim, the men also checked Naqeebullah's messages on their mobile phones and questioned them about him. "After some time, we were let go but Naqeebullah had been separated from us. The police threatened us to not discuss the incident with anyone else,” added Qasim. Rao Anwar accused Naqeebullah of being a terrorist, but the inquiry committee of senior police officers probing the case found his allegation baseless. A mid-level police officer at the Malir police station, who had worked under Rao Anwar, remarked that money was the motive behind the picking up of Naqeebullah. He said: “Rao’s touts amongst the Sohrab Goth shopkeepers came to know that Naseem aqeebullahwas in possession of a hefty amount of money with which he wanted to buy a shop." "Two policemen — SI Yaseen Dhukku and ASI Akbar Mallah — picked him up along with two of his friends from a restaurant on Abul Hassan Ispahani road. While they let his friends go, they continued to torture him even after extracting Rs9 million, demanding he pay them Rs20 million more. By then, he was in such bad shape that they decided it would be unwise to set him free,” added the police officer.

Killing of Gul Saeed

On 16 January 2018, when the inquiry against Rao Anwar was about to start following the killing of Naqeebullah Mehsud, Rao Anwar claimed that he came under attack in Karachi's

Malir Cantonment The Army Cantonment ( ur, آرمی چھاؤنی ) is a cantonment town of the city of Karachi, in Sindh, Pakistan. It serves as a military base and residential establishment. History Declared a cantonment by the Royal British Government a ...

while he was heading towards his house. He alleged that a suicide attacker detonated explosives near him and his squad but they remained unhurt, and that two accomplices of the attacker then opened fire on the police, both of whom were shot dead in the exchange of fire. He also alleged that a few militants escaped the site under the cover of fire while the police and

Pakistan Rangers The Pakistan Rangers ( ur, ) are a paramilitary federal law enforcement organization in Pakistan, operating under the authority of the Interior Secretary of Pakistan. Their primary purpose is to secure and defend sites of significance in the ...

were conducting search operation. The alleged suicide attacker was later identified as Gul Saeed Afridi, a 34-year-old driver from

Orangi Town Orangi Town ( sd, اُورنگي ٽاؤن, ur, ) lies in the northwestern part of the city that was named after the sprawling municipality of Orangi. Orangi Town was formed in 2001 as part oThe Local Government Ordinance 2001 and was subdivid ...

, Karachi, who had gone

missing Missing or The Missing may refer to: Film * ''Missing'' (1918 film), an American silent drama directed by James Young * ''Missing'' (1982 film), an American historical drama directed by Costa-Gavras * ''Missing'' (2007 film) (''Vermist''), a Bel ...

a few months earlier. Gul Saeed's body was found to be burned badly, but not blown up and still in one piece, although it had allegedly fell far from Rao Anwar's armoured vehicle. Gul Saeed's family was outraged at the demands of the police from them after the killing. They protested and took Gul Saeed's body away from the police by force, but returned it to the mortuary after negotiations. The police placed the three dead bodies at the

morgue in Karachi. The other two bodies besides Gul Saeed, which were still unidentified, had been riddled with bullets. The

(Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP) immediately claimed responsibility of the alleged suicide attack. Gul Saeed's family, however, appealed against Rao Anwar's allegations and claimed that Gul Saeed was innocent and had no links with terrorists. They asked how a suicide attack could even be possible in a sensitive area surrounded by the military like the cantonment, and asserted that Rao Anwar had in fact murdered Gul Saeed extrajudicially. The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) probing the case doubted if a suicide attack had taken place at the site. Suggesting that it was a fake encounter, a senior CTD officer Omar Khattab said: “This has been observed for the first time that the suicide bomber, despite having himself blown up with explosives, was only burnt. While examining the site of the attack, no traces of any explosive material were found. Even there was no smell of explosives.” The investigators found out that contrary to Rao Anwar's claim, no exchange of fire had taken place. According to the investigators, the alleged suicide attacker Gul Saeed was first riddled by the police with bullets, then a suicide vest was wrapped around his body, and then the vest was set on fire which burned his body.

Investigation

The inquiry committee of senior police officers probing Naqeebullah Mehsud's case found no sign of an exchange of gunfire at the site of the alleged police encounter, which was an abandoned poultry farm. Although the police officers who had taken part in the alleged shootout claimed that militants were hiding inside the poultry farm who attacked them when the police encircled the hideout, the inquiry committee found out that there was no gunfire from inside the poultry farm during the incident. Some marks of firing were found in a room and on walls of the poultry farm, which the inquiry team declared to be post-incident fabrications by the police team. The committee found out that during his service as a senior police officer in the

between 2011 and 2018, Rao Anwar carried out at least 444 killings in 192 alleged encounters, whereas the total number of alleged police encounters led by him was 745, including 553 cases which did not involve any killings. However, not a single policeman was ever killed or even injured during his 745 alleged encounters. Eight people were killed in Rao Anwar's two alleged encounters in the first 19 days of January 2018 alone. Senior police officers in Karachi, on condition of anonymity, claimed that the majority of the people killed during Rao Anwar's encounters were ethnic

. They added that men were airlifted to Karachi from as far away as the

Federally Administered Tribal Areas , conventional_long_name = Federally Administered Tribal Areas , nation = Pakistan , subdivision = Autonomous territory , image_flag = Flag of FATA.svg , image_coat = File:Coat of arms ...

for Rao Anwar to deal with them. Another senior police officer stated: “ ao Anwarled a team of killing machines. There was no one to stop him.” Explaining why no notice was taken of Rao Anwar's actions earlier, the senior police officer revealed that “even the police command is afraid of him because of his close connections with criminal

political boss In politics, a boss is a person who controls a faction or local branch of a political party. They do not necessarily hold public office themselves; most historical bosses did not, at least during the times of their greatest influence. Numerous off ...

es and within the security

establishment Establishment may refer to: * The Establishment, a dominant group or elite that controls a polity or an organization * The Establishment (club), a 1960s club in London, England * The Establishment (Pakistan), political terminology for the military ...

.” The inquiry committee termed the allegations by Rao Anwar against Naqeebullah as baseless and suggested to add Rao Anwar's name to the

Exit Control List The Exit Control Lists (ECL; ur, ) is a system of border control maintained by the Government of Pakistan under Exit from Pakistan (Control) Ordinance, 1981. The people on the list are prohibited from leaving Pakistan. Priorities 1. Exit from P ...

. They stated that the claims made by Rao Anwar, including the claim that Naqeebullah was unmarried, were untrue. The committee concluded that Naqeebullah was innocent and had no history of militancy or criminal activity, but was rather killed in a fake police encounter carried out by Rao Anwar. The four men including Naqeebullah were killed in two separate rooms of the abandoned farm by Rao Anwar's team and then their bodies were dumped in a single room. On 20 January 2018, Rao Anwar was removed from his post as senior superintendent of police (SSP) Malir on the recommendation of the committee. On 23 January 2018, Rao Anwar attempted to flee the country in a

-bound flight from

Benazir Bhutto International Airport Benazir Bhutto International Airport ( ur, , ) is a defunct airport which formerly served the Islamabad-Rawalpindi metropolitan area. It was the second-largest airport by air traffic in Pakistan, until 3 May 2018 when it was replaced by the ...

Islamabad Islamabad (; ur, , ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's ninth-most populous city, with a population of over 1.2 million people, and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital T ...

, but the

Federal Investigation Agency The Federal Investigation Agency ( ur, ; reporting name: FIA) is a border control, criminal investigation, counter-intelligence and security agency under the control of the Interior Secretary of Pakistan, tasked with investigative jurisdictio ...

foiled his attempt and stopped him at the immigration counter of the airport after observing that his

No Objection Certificate No Objection Certificate, popularly abbreviated as NOC, is a type of legal certificate issued by any agency, organisation, institute or, in certain cases, an individual. It does not object to the covenants of the certificate. The certification is ...

was inauthentic. On 24 January 2019, a Pakistani anti-terrorism court declared Naqeebullah and the three other persons murdered with him as innocent. On remand from the court, 13 police officials were imprisoned, but 7 suspects including Rao Anwar were granted bail. Anwar's trial began in 2020 and is currently ongoing.

Pashtun Tahafuz Movement

The

(PTM), under the leadership of

Manzoor Pashteen Manzoor Ahmad Pashteen (Pashto: منظور احمد پښتين, Urdu: منظور احمد پشتین) is a Pakistani Pashtun human rights activist from South Waziristan. He is the chairman of Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM). ("Pashtun Protection ...

, launched a campaign to seek justice for Naqeebullah Mehsud soon after his murder. PTM organized a series of protest marches and sit-ins at various cities. They held public gatherings in

Quetta Quetta (; ur, ; ; ps, کوټه‎) is the tenth List of cities in Pakistan by population, most populous city in Pakistan with a population of over 1.1 million. It is situated in Geography of Pakistan, south-west of the country close to the ...

Peshawar Peshawar (; ps, پېښور ; hnd, ; ; ur, ) is the sixth most populous city in Pakistan, with a population of over 2.3 million. It is situated in the north-west of the country, close to the International border with Afghanistan. It is ...

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city. ...

Swat In the United States, a SWAT team (special weapons and tactics, originally special weapons assault team) is a police tactical unit that uses specialized or military equipment and tactics. Although they were first created in the 1960s to ...

Dera Ismail Khan Dera Ismail Khan (; bal, , Urdu and skr, , ps, ډېره اسماعيل خان), abbreviated as D.I. Khan, is a city and capital of Dera Ismail Khan District, located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It is the 37th largest city of Pakistan ...

Swabi Swabi ( ps, صوابۍ; ur, ) is a city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan,Pashteen vows to continue struggle for Pakhtun rights
''Dawn''. August 13, 2018.

Bannu Bannu ( ps, بنو, translit=banū ; ur, , translit=bannū̃, ) is a city located on the Kurram River in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It is the capital of Bannu Division. Bannu's residents are primarily members of the Banuchi tribe ...

, as well as other cities and towns, in which one of the main demands was to punish Rao Anwar and his team for murdering Naqeebullah. On 23 March 2018, PTM leader

Arif Wazir Sardar Muhammad Arif Afghan Wazir ( ps, محمد عارف افغان وزیر; 2 May 1982 – 2 May 2020) was a Pashtun nationalist politician, activist, and one of the leaders of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM). He was a member of the Pashtu ...

led a protest rally from Wanna to the home of Naqeebullah in

, South Waziristan. On 24 March, Wazir was detained by the authorities under the

Frontier Crimes Regulation The Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) were a special set of laws of British India, and which were applicable to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). They were enacted by in the nineteenth century and remained in effect in Pakistan un ...

for organizing the rally. Three other PTM activists were also arrested. PTM supporters protested against the arrests in front of press clubs in Peshawar, Quetta, Swat, Swabi, Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan, Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi,

Zhob Zhob (; ) or Zhobak (), formerly known as Appozai or Fort Sandeman, is a city and district capital of Zhob District in Balochistan province of Pakistan. Zhob is located on the banks of Zhob River 337 km from Quetta, the capital of Balochistan. T ...

Loralai Loralai ( ps, لورلايي, ur, ), also known as Bori ( ps, ), is the division headquarter of Loralai Division and district headquarter of Loralai District. It is in the northeast of Balochistan province in Pakistan. It is above sea level ...

Killa Saifullah Killa Saifullah ( ps, قلعه سيف الله), also Qilla Saifullah is a city in Killa Saifullah District, Balochistan, Pakistan.) is a district in northwestern Balochistan province, Pakistan. Killa Saifullah is famous for its fertile soil produ ...

Ziarat Ziarat (Urdu and ps, ) is a city in the Ziarat District situated in the Balochistan. It is from the capital city of Eastern Balochistan Quetta. It was established as a district on 1st July 1986, before then it was part of Sibi district. The ...

, and other cities.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mehsud, Naqeebullah 2018 in Sindh 2018 murders in Pakistan 2010s crimes in Karachi 21st-century mass murder in Pakistan Encounters in Pakistan Enforced disappearances in Pakistan Human rights abuses in Pakistan January 2018 crimes in Asia January 2018 events in Pakistan Mass murder in 2018 Mass murder in Karachi Pashtun Tahafuz Movement People shot dead by law enforcement officers in Pakistan Protests in Pakistan Deaths by firearm in Sindh People murdered in Karachi