By Amir Mir
LAHORE: Some key leaders of several jehadi and sectarian organisations, including a jailed militant, were flown from Lahore, Bahawalpur and Rahim Yar Khan to the garrison town of Rawalpindi on special flights to hold talks with the hostage takers who had stormed the GHQ building on October 10, 2009.
According to well-informed officials in Islamabad privy to the happenings of the October 10th storming of GHQ by terrorists, wherein 42 staffers had been taken hostage. The terrorists had listed their demands and expressed their desire to hold talks with the Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. The hostage takers had given a list of the jailed militants belonging to several Sunni Deobandi militant and sectarian groups, seeking their release, failing which, it waswarned that the hostages would be killed one after another. However, as a time buying tactic, the negotiators decided to rope in some key leaders of several jehadi and sectarian groups to hold talks with terrorists. Special planes were subsequently dispatched to Lahore, Bahawalpur and Rahim Yar Khan to bring to Rawalpindi Malik Ishaq, a jailed leader of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, Mufti Abdul Rauf, the younger brother of Maulana Masood Azhar who is the acting Ameer of the Jaish-e-Mohammad, and Maulana Mohammad Ahmed Ludhianvi, the chief of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, to hold talks with the hostage takers.
According to the sources, though Malik Ishaq and Maulana Mohammad Ahmed Ludhianvi had been taken to Pindi because of their sectarian connection with the Taliban-linked attackers, the SSP leaders, in the very beginning of the telephonic negotiations with the hostage takers, told the military authorities that they had no prior acquaintance with any of the attackers. Later, Mufti Abdul Rauf and Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil of the Jamiatul Ansar, who was summoned from the federal capital Islamabad, tried in vain to negotiate with the hostage takers.
Soon after getting hold of the security personnel and the civilians, the terrorists had threatened to kill them in batches of ten every hour if the authorities did not accept their demands. The negotiators had asked the attackers to wait till Saturday morning for the release of the jailed militants so that they might be brought to Rawalpindi. However, the rescue operation was launched at 6 in the morning before the expiry of the deadline. According to the official sources, the detainees had been divided into two groups of 20 and 22 and kept in different rooms of the building by four terrorists each. Despite the fact that the attackers guarding the hostages had donned suicide jackets, the first one fell down at the very outset of the rescue operation as the SSG commandos shot him point blank in the head and he collapsed without having the chance to blow himself up. The remaining three simply blew themselves by exploding their suicide jackets when the commandos tried entering the building.
Interestingly, Mohammad Aqeel alias Dr Usman, instead of blowing up himself with his suicidal jacket, adopted a unique tactic. As his fellow terrorists blew up themselves, he set ablaze his explosive-laden jacket in one room and hid himself in the false ceiling of another room inside the security offices of the GHQ. As the rescue operation ended and the clearance of the building started, everybody was looking for him because only four dead bodies of other terrorists were found. And the man negotiating with the authorities, who had identified himself as Aqeel alias Dr Usman was missing. The sources say he had camouflaged himself well and kept out of sight for a couple of hours until bad luck struck him in the face. The false ceiling couldn’t bear his weight any longer and simply collapsed, throwing Aqeel on the floor and hurting his head badly. Having survived the head injury, Mohammad Aqeel is reportedly out of danger.
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