The head of the Counter Terrorism Department and three other officials in Pakistan’s Punjab province have been removed in connection with the shooting last week in which a family was killed, Reuters reported on Wednesday. Pakistani authorities will charge five police officials with murder.
On January 19, the counter-terrorism officials shot at a car they claimed was being used by a leader of the Islamic State group in the province. A couple, identified as Mohammad Khalil and Nabeela, and their 12-year-old daughter were also killed in the shooting with the suspect. The couple’s son was injured in the incident. Three children survived the firing.
“The operation was conducted with criminal negligence by the CTD officials,” Punjab Information Minister Fayyazul Hasan Chohan said, according to Reuters. “The CTD also misled the government about facts... and kept changing statements.”
Punjab Law Minister Raja Basharat said the department’s claim that a terror suspect had shot first at the officers was not true. “I admit that the operation was ill-planned and was conducted in an unprofessional way,” Basharat said. “But the fact remains that Zeeshan Javed [the suspect] was connected to a terror network.”
The minister added the network was involved in the kidnapping of an American aid worker in Lahore in 2011, and in the kidnapping of former Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s son Ali Haider Gilani in 2013.
Earlier this week, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan promised “swift action” against those responsible for the civilian deaths. Khan said he was shocked at “seeing the traumatised children who saw their parents shot before their eyes”. The prime minister had said they would be now be looked after by the state.
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