Source/Credit: AT/TOA
By Staff Report | December 10, 2016
The Punjab Police Officer behind a peculiarly-timed raid on an Ahmadiyya publications office in Rabwah has a long track record of involvement in corruption, illegal property seizures and staging fake police encounters to carry out extrajudicial killings, an investigation into the incident has revealed.
Additional Inspector General (AIG) of the Punjab Police's Counter Terrorism Department (CTD), Muhammad Tahir Rai, is alleged to have hastily orchestrated the raid after his team "decided that there was no judicial bar on conducting raid against the magazines" published by the Ahmadiyya community in Rabwah, Pakistan.
The Times of Ahmad reported on December 5th about a vicious and illegal raid carried out by a large CTD contingent at the Ahmadiyya Community's press and central offices in Rabwah to search for blasphmous contents in the community magazines which are already subject of an ongoing legal dispute with the Punjab government.
The raid was carried out despite the fact that a valid court order is in place barring all "coercive measures" against the publications, said Jama'at Ahmadiyya in a press release.
According to several media reports, armed police personnel wearing masks descended on the Ahmadiyya-owned facilities to search for 'blasphemous' publications and, in the process, brutally beat up staffers, made unjustified arrests and seized office equipment, books and records, including staff's personal property.
"It didn't look like just a police raid," said one eyewitness who asked to withhold his name for personal safety reasons. "It looked like vengeance, some sort of old revenge."
"They came in with guns drawn, loud and abusive. It was very traumatic," said the eyewitness, adding, "We were pushed, kicked, and thrown to the ground at the gunpoint."
The incident, which took place within hours of the Pakistani government honoring an Ahmadi scientist, Dr Abdus Salam, is suspected of being an act of retaliation initiated by the anti-Ahmadiyya extremists' and hardliners' wing in the Punjab ruling party.
According to a report filed by The Express Tribune, a local English Daily, AIG Rai first admitted that the raid was conducted on a third-party complaint, although he denied it was "some religious pressure group."
However, on the other hand, Majlis Tahfuz Khatam-e-Nabuwat (MTKN), the infamous extremist religious pressure group with international reach, had confirmed on its Facebook page that the raid was conducted on their complaint, The Express Tribune reported.
“It is not true to associate this raid with Dr Salam’s acknowledgement," AIG Rai told The Express Tribune in order to conceal the links between the two event.
"It is a purely local action and has nothing to do with some religious pressure group or some government quarters in Islamabad or any minister,” The Express Tribune quoted AIG Rai as saying.
AIG Rai, it is learnt, did not know at the time of his discussion with The Express Tribune that MTKN had already disclosed their link to the complaint and taken credit for the ensuing Rabwah raid on their facebook page.
AIG Rai remained adamant though saying that it was his initiative that was carried out after consulting his legal team at the Faisalabad office about the court’s stay but Rai says "he was informed that there was no stay order up till now."
The two key leaders of the Punjab government, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Law Minister, Rana Sanaullah, are known to court extremist clerics from various religious groups. While CM Sharif patronizes Khatam-e-Nabuwat extremist group, Law Minister, Sanaullah is known to campaign for elections with leaders of banned terrorists groups.
Some say AIG Rai has been an enforcer for the corrupt and powerful in the ruling PML-N, helping them in illegal seizures of real property from the helpless members of public such as widows and the elderly.
The so called rap sheet for AIG Rai is long, extending from his participation in the famous killing of late Mir Murtaza Bhutto in a staged 'police encounter' in the Pakistani port city of Karachi in the 1990s to his involvements in the Punjab, in staging more fake police encounter, coverup of a subordinate's murder in his department, illegal property seizures, and kidnappings for ransom, during the last decade.
In all instances to-date, AIG Rai has successfully managed to fend off all actions against him, including his acquittal in the criminal proceedings of the Mir Murtaza Bhutto murder case, and there were mostly non-actions in departmental administrative proceedings. In one case, however, where Rai's role in an illegal real property seizure case was assumed so egregious, the Chief Minister Sharif had to order an inquiry. He was later transferred to a different department.
Rai however denies there was any action taken against him, saying his transfer was routine.
At the time of Rai's first appointment as the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Police, Punjab, the press release (Handout No. 141) issued by the Punjab Police said,
"Rai Muhammad Tahir is considered to be one of the most honest and dutiful officer of Police Department."
-- Pakistan: Police Officer of questionable repute plotted Illegal attack on Ahmadiyya offices
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