In a startling revelation, the prime accused of Peshawar’s Army Public School (APS) terror attack that took place on 16 December 2014, former Taliban commander, Ehsanullah Ehsan has claimed that the Pakistani Army is involved in running death squads, as reported in Sunday Guardian Live.
In yet another embarrassment for the Pakistani Army, an 11-minute audio clip was released by the former Taliban commander in which Ehsan makes public the names of the officers of the Pakistan Army, who had facilitated his “surrender” and were handling him.
If that was not enough, he further claimed that the Pakistani Military Intelligence (MI) to be part of a “death squad” that comprised surrendered terrorists from various groups including Jaish-e-Mohammed and Ehsanullah’s former group, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
The purpose of recruiting such men is to carry out the dirty tasks of Pakistan Army which gives them selected targets to eliminate because these people are considered as “anti-state”, and hence chosen to be terminated.
During this interview with The Sunday Guardian, Eshan said he will be releasing the names of the individuals who were on this death list, public.
The Pakistani army has for a long time used these non-state actors to carry out their dirty work. Islamic terror groups have been used as a paramilitary to carry out acts of violence and murder.
When this list is released the long-held suspicion that Pakistan Army has been operating and managing death squads to eliminate “troublemakers” will see the light of the day.
However, this information could not have come at a worse time because Pakistan is up for another review by the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) which meets is expected in September and review Pakistan’s case before it is placed in front of the FATF plenary, most likely to be held October.
Ehsan told The Sunday Guardian that the list had names of people mostly from Peshawar, Quetta and Mardan. “I was shown a list of those individuals the Pakistan Army wanted to eliminate, many of them were Pashtuns from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and a few of them were journalists,”
In his disclosed, Eshan also talked about the death squads operating in the restive region of Balochistan. He said death squads are working in Balochistan, and are carrying out killings on the orders of the Pakistan Army.
Pakistan Army’s headquarters in Rawalpindi, spokesperson, Major General Babar said, “The comments made in the tape are absolutely baseless. He escaped while we were using him for an operation. He was in our custody and the information he gave helped us dismantle the terrorist organisations he was working for,”.