Life Story Of Fahim Commando
Extrajudicial Killings In Karachi
There is a lot of debate about extra judicial killing in Pakistan, especially the operations that happened in Karachi in 1992 and 1995, which have always been discussed Even today, both operations have been very controversial in terms of extra judicial killing. From MQM’s point of view, they blame the government that the police and other law enforcing departments killed their workers through extra judicial killing and hundreds of their workers were killed in fake police encounters. Whereas on behalf of the police and the government it is said, and he also said that all these police encounters were absolutely legally correct, and whatever justification they had to justify them with their words, they used to give it to MQM. MQM rose as a political force to raise voice for the rights of Muhajirs in urban areas and was going well. Then suddenly it seemed that perhaps the politics of guns had started, and in response to that, perhaps the state too wrongly responded to power with power, and this created more problems.
Fahim Farooqui To Fahim Commando
People like Fahim Farooqui or Fahim Commando took a different path or were accused of adopting the path of terrorism. In terms of extrajudicial killings, there is one such case that is still talked about today, and that is of Fahim Farooqi, or Faheem Commando, who was a high-profile militant of MQM who had many cases—dozens of cases in which policemen were targeted, especially Bahadur Ali, the super cop encounter specialist of his time, and for whom it was said that he was the cop who started the wave of encounters in Karachi. He earned a big name during an operation. It was a bad time; policemen were being killed selectively, whoever lived in those areas of Karachi where MQM was strong. It was a very bad time for the policemen in District Central, District East and Central; in fact, it was all over Karachi. Faheem Commando was a resident of North Nazimabad area and it was not that all MQM and Faheem Commando were born terrorists. These were very good areas in the city, North Nazimabad. In a house named Lalazar in L block, there lived this well-educated, middle-class family, which Faheem
Commando was associated with.
There used to be a very infamous terrorist era in those days, and the name of Fahim Commando, who was said to be associated with MQM, topped the list. It was said that he is involved in more than 100 murders. When Fahim Commando was arrested, who was accused of 100 murders, then the information about it was given to the then Prime Minister, who was Madam Benazir Bhutto, in which she expressed happiness. The Home Minister expressed happiness. He was such a high-profile target. When he was sent on judicial remand for 14 days, then rocket attacks took place on the Sindh Secretariat.When the secretariat was attacked with rockets that evening. Rao Anwar, infamous for extrajudicial killings, used to be an SHO at that time. He took an order from a magistrate and took Fahim Commando from the jail and said that we are taking him for identification. After taking him out, a planted story was created that Faheem’s fellow had come to rescue him, and in police response, he was killed. When the media was brought there, it was seen that Faheem Commando was in handcuffs, so this encounter became more controversial.
Fahim Commando, a young man from Nazimabad Karachi L block, who, at a very young age of 20 years, joined the militant group of MQM after his brother was killed in a fake police encounter. In a very short time, Fahim Commando also started doing what that group used to do, strikes were common in the city at that time, and apart from burning and siege, firing and target killing were many such things that Fahim Commando immediately got the opportunity to unleash his hands on and then it so happened that one time Fahim Commando became a symbol of terror. He used to attack by calling the police stations first and informing them about his next attack. He targeted many policemen while they were going to duty from home or returning from police station to home, and DSP Hakim Tanoli was among them, as were many other police officers; those from district central and members of opposition parties who were associated with other political parties were also targeted.
The Arrest That Shook Karachi
Faheem Commando was arrested, and at the CIA, Jamshed Quarter, when the identification procedure was carried out, none of those boys was ready to take the name of Fahim Commando. Meanwhile, police were also monitoring the phones of MQM members. So the discussion started that yes, Haji has been caught. Who was Haji? It was a code name for Faheem Commando. In this way, police and agencies confirmed that Fahim Commando has been caught somewhere, so the monitoring team contacted the police and told them that yes, Fahim Commando has been caught by someone, and whoever is caught should not be let go. It was found out that CIA Jamshed Quarter people have arrested six seven boys of the MQM militant group.They were transferred to CIA Saddar. After that, some people were called who identified Fahim Commando, and then one of those boys who were caught with him admitted that this was Fahim Commando, and he told the real names of all of them. Now that Fahim Commando accepted his identity, he claimed that now that I have been arrested, I could sleep peacefully; otherwise, the condition outside was such that I couldn’t sleep for days. He said that at times it used to be such that I felt like finding a policeman and killing him or finding an enemy or an opponent to kill and then go to sleep peacefully.
He kept telling everything. He went to Afghanistan for training. And it is a matter of surprise that he went to Afghanistan for training. But when the operation was in full swing after 1992, many of those boys went with Tablighi Jamaat; some went somewhere else, as there was no place to escape, and some went to other cities also. So this was a war going on in Afghanistan at that time, between North and Taliban. At that time, Harkat Mujahideen had started the process of recruitment from here from the whole country. But Fahim Commando from Karachi went to Afghanistan for training with his friends from the platform of Harkat Mujahideen, where he was hosted for 40 days. He got training at a training camp and there he got training in rocket launcher, pistol, and grenade use, and he even learnt how to use explosives. He was already proficient in these things and he used all these things in his caravan. Now he had become a specialist, and he took advantage of it in the field. Later on, Fahim Commando came back from there and then from Fahim Farooqui he became Fahim Commando. He received commando training, and so everyone started calling him Commando. Among his colleagues were Saulat Mirza, Suhail Bengali, Sujat Bobby and many other boys. Salim Baloch was senior to him and Khalid Haq Allah was there.
Fahim Commando The Dare-Devil Of MQM
In those days, Bahadurarli was a brave man like his name, and he was respected a lot in the police. It was believed that any dangerous task was not difficult for Bahadur Ali, and in those days, when officers used to avoid taking postings in the police stations of the District Center of Karachi, Bahadur Ali was ready to go anywhere. Especially those police stations where the law and order situation was very bad, target killing was in full swing, and due to militancy. Bahadur Ali was posted as SHO of that police station, but wherever he got information, he used to read it in the whole of Karachi, and he killed many people in encounters, which MQM calls the father of extrajudicial killings in Karachi, and mostly because of his work, whoever was there, would run away from the area out of fear of him, and the people who worked for him also faced difficulties where his life was in danger; he was threatened; not only the militants of MQM used to give threats, but many other people were enemies of his life.
Many allegations were made against Faheem Commando, out of which one of the biggest and most serious allegations became very big and created a lot of noise in the era of print media that was of the murder of Bahadur Ali. Bahadur Ali had his own style of working; the trend of police encounters came from India. This trend started in Pakistan too and perhaps among its pioneers were police officers like Bahadur Ali.
Now Bahadur Ali was a very big name. So, for Bahadur Ali and Rao Anwar, the leadership of MQM decided, and a message was given below that somehow kill these two. A meeting was held in this regard, and at that time, Fahim Commando revealed during the investigation that Doctor Imran Farooq and Javed Langra arranged a meeting, and there were different teams, which were high-profile militants who were running the teams. Farooq Dada, Fahim, Commando Rehan Kana—apart from this, there were some boys from Korangi and teams from the Orangi town. All of them were called, and they were made to sit and talk about how this should be done on priority. Farooq Dada was of the opinion that He would do this task. Fahim Commando kept listening quietly, and he felt that it was a task in his area, and if someone from outside came and did it, it would be his disgrace. So he came back from that meeting, but the first thing he did after coming back was organize his team and start working on the task.
On 28th June 1994, when he was going to the office from his house with his three soldiers. Then his car started, and as per his routine, he came out of the street, and when he reached the corner, three people started firing from there and Bahadur Ali was martyred on the spot, according to Irfan Bahadur, his son and as per the print media his three companions were also killed in that attack. It was a well planned attack, He was being watched for weeks. Fahim knew about his routine and on the night of attack, three barricades were setup at three different places of his street. A family was made hostage for whole night, and Fahim and his team stayed that night at someone who was giving him information of every moment and finally he eliminated this high-profile target.
The police kill their enemy
After this action, Fahim Commando’s name started resonating in Karachi, and all those people of MQM who knew Fahim Commando’s status rose very high in their eyes. His name is associated in 100 murders, most of them involving police officers. He eliminated such high-profile targets, also alleged in Sindh Secretariat rocket attacks. After all such activities, when he was caught and identified, it was impossible for him to make it out of police custody alive. One night, after getting orders from magistrate, Rao Anwar killed him in fake police encounter Even though he was in police custody, he was encountered with handcuffs on.