Huge cache of NATO weapons recovered in Karachi

Islamabad, Oct 6 (IANS) A huge cache of NATO firearms was put on display for the media in Pakistan's port-city of Karachi, police said.

The police claimed to have seized, in collaboration with intelligence agencies, the biggest ever cache of firearms in the history of Karachi in a predawn raid on Wednesday near the sealed headquarters of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) in Azizabad area, Dawn reported.

Interestingly, law enforcement agencies, particularly Rangers, have raided Azizabad a number of times in the past and claimed similar but much lower in scale recoveries.

Weapons not common in Pakistan are also among the recovered arms. "Weapons used by NATO forces and some official Pakistani weapons are also among the recovered arms," said Karachi Additional IG Mushtaq Maher. "We are conducting forensic tests of these weapons to ascertain if they have earlier been used in Karachi."

The police had to hire at least three Mazda trucks to shift the huge cache of weapons to the DIG office where AIG Karachi along with the Central DIG and SSP Muqaddas Haider held a press conference.

The city police chief claimed that these arms were supposed to be used by the elements residing in London particularly with cooperation of RAW (Indian intelligence agency) for terror activities in the metropolis but it was foiled through timely action by security institutions.

"These weapons were hidden for terror acts to be perpetrated by terrorists of a political party based in South Africa," said the AIG Karachi.

Earlier in March, a large cache of ammunition was recovered by Rangers during a raid at MQM headquarters, Nine Zero. According to Rangers spokesperson Col. Tahir, the ammunition stolen from NATO containers was also seized during the search operation.