Thunder Squad/IJT
The AK-47 first made its proper introduction in Pakistan in mid-1979 when the then leader of the IJT in Karachi and president of the student union at the University of Karachi, appeared on the campus with ‘bodyguards’ armed with AK-47s.
The bodyguards were led by Rana Javed, the notorious leader of IJT’s militant wing, the ‘Thunder Squad’ — a violent group formed at the University of Karachi and Punjab University to “curb immoral activities on campuses.”
NSF, BSO, the Peoples Students Federation (PSF) — the student-wing of the PPP — and the Liberal Students Organisation (LSO) had a history of regularly clashing with IJT and its moral squad.
In 1979, the Thunder Squad demonstrated the first (recorded) usage of an AK-47 in Pakistan when it fired upon a gathering of progressive students at Karachi University.
There were no deaths, but the incident left anti-IJT forces badly shaken but awakened to the reality of an enemy that was fast changing its tactics.
Rana and his men had come into contact with a Pakistani middle-man who had gotten them in touch with an Afghan gun dealer in Peshawar. Funds were raised by the IJT in Karachi (accommodated by the JI and its connections with Hekmatyar), and a group of IJT men travelled to Peshawar to buy their first cache of AK47.
With temperatures rising, IJT members now started distributing AK-47s to Thunder Squad personnel in Punjab as well. Distressed by IJT’s violent growth there, leftist militant students formed the Black Eagles. Outside the IJT, the Eagles were the first student group to acquire AK-47s in Lahore.
In mid-1981, the AK-47 claimed its third victim at the University of Karachi when IJT members mowed down Shaukat Cheema, a member of the USM.
In 1977, IJT had successfully campaigned to have a mosque built on the campus. But by 1980, the organisation was using the mosque to stash its pistols and AK-47s. And it was near the same mosque that Cheema was ambushed and downed by a hail of bullets from an AK-47.
By 1985, an AK-47 was easily available in Karachi and its usage extended beyond university and college campuses; organised criminal gangs were now armed with them as well.
The major reason behind the weapon’s widespread availability was the influx of Afghan refugees, who in the early 1980s had started moving into the shanty towns of Karachi.
With them came gun and drug runners. Compared to the 1970s, crime in Karachi almost quadrupled in the 1980s, and Karachi soon had the second-biggest population of heroin addicts in the world.
Almost 51 per cent of the city's population was Mohajir (Urdu-speakers), and their anger towards Afghan gun-runners and drug peddlers (most of whom were Pashto-speaking) metamorphosed into agitation against the city’s Pashtuns, who had migrated from KP in the 1960s.
The tension between the two communities erupted into deadly riots and pitched battles. This violence eventually saw the APMSO give rise to the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM)
bso-na.blogspot.com/.../years-of-gun-political-history-of-ak-4...
2013年12月26日 ... A 1975 photo of Hekmatyar taken in Peshawar. ... he invited the staunchly anti- PPP Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) to join ... In 1979, the Thunder Squad demonstrated the first ... Funds were raised by the IJT in Karachi (.accommodated by ...
It's a very long blog by Nadeem F Pracha but interesting read.
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