Ongoing operation: police arrest 1,487 suspects including 48 target killers: Saud

Saud Mirza, Additional Inspector General (IG) of Sindh police, on Monday said that police had arrested 1478 suspects including 48 target killers and 21 people involved in extortion and recovered huge cache of weapons in several raids in different areas of the metropolis.
Addressing a press conference at DIG South office, he said the Sindh police had conducted raids at about 2,000 places, during which some 1478 persons including 48 target killers and 21 extortionists were detained and huge cache of weapons were seized.
He claimed that the police were actively performing its duty before the violence flared up on August 18 and continued till August 23, which claimed 101 lives. He said that police after the said violence drawn new strategy with the assistance of Pakistan Rangers to combat the criminals involved in targeted killing.
Mirza further claimed that ratio of targeted killings was brought down to three per cent till September 9, 2011 after the joint search operations of Sindh police and Rangers started on August 23. He said law enforcement agencies had recovered huge cache of illegal weapons including 36 Kalashnikovs, 476 pistols, 19 riffles, 18 repeaters and 259 grenades during the ongoing action.
Moreover, he said, 17 target killers and 78 absconded criminals were arrested in joint raids of Sindh police and CID from Mochko, Pak colony and New Karachi, during which 290 different types of weapons including 253 grenades were recovered. He said Sindh police have so far arrested 140 target killers, who were allegedly involved in the killings of 245 persons. He further said that around 1583 persons were killed during current year, of them, 468 persons were fallen prey to the targeted killings.
Out of 325 persons, who were killed in July, 130 persons lost their lives in targeted killings. Similarly, 147 out of 258 persons were murdered in targeted killings on ethnic ground. He said that some 38 persons were so far killed in September, of them only two persons were targeted.