Speaking to Dawn, security officials said that if the terrorists were ‘civilians’, why did they not surrender when the announcements were made. They said it took 17-hours to successfully complete the operation and a police officer and a soldier were martyred.
“Those casting doubts and aspersion on our credibility have vested agenda. They wouldn’t explain how an assistant sub-inspector of the counterterrorism department lost his life, or how, a soldier was killed,” security officials told Dawn.
The security officials revealed that Amjad Ali, the ringleader of the group killed in the Hayatabad operation, had been affiliated with Mufti Shahzad group, an offshoot of the TTP. The security agencies had been following him due to his activities in Hayatabad.
“We have been looking for Amjad for quite sometimes. His name had cropped up during interrogation of several high profile cases in Hayatabad area and July 2018 suicide attack that killed ANP leader Haroon Bilour,” the official said.
Security officials revealed that Amjad had slipped away to Turkey but phone conversations revealed that the group was planning ‘something big’, including plans to assassinate a key cabinet minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government.
A group of Afridi tribe elders from the Khyber district on Friday claimed that the killing of five men in Hayatabad operation was a ‘fake encounter’ and demanded a judicial inquiry into the matter, Dawn News reported.
The tribe members said that if their demands were not met, they would ‘announce an agitation plan against the killings’ and the rulers would be responsible for what happens afterward.
Jalil Afridi, a cousin of Amjad Afridi who was among the 5 men killed, said that Amjad had recently returned from abroad to appear in a court case regarding his reinstatement in the food department.