BHARA KAHU: A phantom body, clueless cops and busy spies: the fallout from the shooting of a senior Haqqani network leader will do little to dampen suspicions of Pakistani complicity with Islamist militants.
Nasiruddin Haqqani, the chief money man for one of the most feared factions fighting US-led forces in Afghanistan, died in a hail of bullets outside a bakery on the edge of Islamabad on Sunday night.
After his death it has emerged that he had been living since 2010 in the suburb, Bhara Kahu, a respected local figure known as “Doctor sahib”.
But in the Bhara Kahu police station, just 100 metres from the scene of the shooting, duty officer Khalid was adamant.
“Murder? What murder? We have no information about a murder,” he said.
There has been no explanation from the government as to how a man so wanted by the US, Islamabad’s ally and principal financial supporter, could live easily for years on the edge of the capital.
According to witnesses, after the shooting at around 8.30pm on Sunday, Pakistani agents came, collected all the bullet casings from the scene and washed away the blood from the pavement outside the bakery.
By then Haqqani’s body was already gone, taken away immediately by his driver to the nearby house. News of the death of “Doctor sahib” spread quickly through the area, but the police seemed curiously unhurried, only arriving at the house at 11pm, according to neighbours.
Haqqani was buried the next day in Dandey Darpakhel village in North Waziristan.
AFP
