Police are investigating the link of Governor Salman Taseer’s assassin Malik Mumtaz Qadri with a grenade blast, which took life of another cop last year in the same vicinity where Qadri’s family resides, The News has learnt reliably.
The additional station house officer, Sadiqabad Police Station, Rawalpindi, first confirmed that the police visited the grenade blast place on 5th January 2011 again after the death of Governor Salman Taseer and have interrogated the people again but latter he ate his words and denied having said anything about Qadri and the grenade blast site.
According to details, two persons, including a policeman, were killed in a hand grenade blast in a shop in Sadiqabad area of Rawalpindi on January 3, 2010, exactly one year before Taseer’s assassination. The blast occurred in a shop ‘Al-Ghaus Property Adviser’ located in Muslim Town (Sadiqabad) and Sadiqabad Police Station Constable Asad Naseem died in the blast. Sources close to Malik Mumtaz Qadri’s family told ‘The News’ that Asad Nadeem was closely associated with Mumtaz Qadri and the whole lot of friends, mostly in police; and used to sit on the same shop where blast had occurred. The shop is said to be in front of the house of Qadri.
Sources held that before the occurrence of grenade blast it was known in the area that few cops carry two grenades with them that was the reason an elderly woman in Qadri’s house died of shock after the blast when she heard that a policeman has died in a grenade blast deeming him to be Qadri.
Sources said that because of the involvement of police in the grenade blast, a story was manufactured that someone from outside had hurled a grenade in the shop; however, all and sundry in the vicinity knew that the ‘a few policemen’ living in the area use to carry the grenades as a posture of pride.
Sources also said that the constable who died in the grenade blast lived near to Qadri’s house and he was a friend of Qadri since childhood, as known to the whole vicinity. “The police kept on finding the second grenade but could not recover it,” said the sources.
The Additional Station House Officer of Sadiqabad Police Station, Riaz Bajwa, first confirmed that police have visited the grenade blast place again and have interrogated the people with reference to Qadri. He also said that so far no link could be established between Qadri and the grenade blast. He mentioned that the constable who died in the grenade blast lived in another street than that of Qadri’s house. However, latter the same policeman denied all what he had said earlier and gave a new statement that he dose not know anything about grenade blast and neither he has any information to share.
It is worth mentioning here that the security agencies investigating the assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer are trying to explore Qadri’s links with Dawat-e-Islami.
Born in Rawalpindi in 1985, Qadri was recruited in the Punjab Police in 2002 and was elevated to the Elite Force in 2007. He was made a part of the Elite Force police squad deployed for security of Taseer almost seven months ago. On January 4, 2011, he killed Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer in Islamabad’s Kohsar Market. Reports say that he was not part of the governor’s squad on the fateful Tuesday but he requested for his duty with the governor. He was also declared unfit for posting on VIP security by police high-ups.
Via The News
