Two Pakistani men named among five terror suspects by intelligence agency RAW and whose photos were carried by the media in India have been identified as traders linked to a bustling electronics market in the eastern Pakistani city.
Amjad Ali Khan is an employee at a cell phone shop at the electronics market at Hafeez Centre while Nadeem Malik runs a business dealing in used cellular phones, media reports said.
Earlier, the three other men named as terror suspects – Mehtab Ahmed Butt, Atif Butt and Babar Shabbir – too were identified as traders and a security guard at Hafeez Centre. It is yet to be established how their photos were issued by Indian security agencies to the media.
Khan and Malik have been associated with businesses at Hafeez Centre for more than four years, Muhammad Fiaz Butt, the head of the local traders' association, told the media. Khan claimed he and Malik had received several calls from an Indian phone number and that the caller had asked them both about their links with terrorist organisations.
Mumbai Police had described the five men as operatives of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba that carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people.
Pakistan's Foreign Office has already rejected as ‘unfounded’ the Mumbai Police alert that linked the men from Lahore to the LeT. Three of the men sought protection from authorities after reports about them appeared in the Indian media.
Traders from Hafeez Centre organised a protest following the Indian media reports. They burnt tyres on roads and shouted slogans against India. They also demanded that the Pakistan government should lodge an official protest and take up the issue with India at the diplomatic level. Sections of the electronic media have played up the incident as an effort by Indian security agencies to portray Pakistan in a negative light.
A TV talk show host known for sympathising with right wing groups hosted a special edition of his programme at Hafeez Centre and blamed the incident on Indian intelligence agencies.