Pakistan Rangers, Sindh announced the arrest of Uzair Baloch, a notorious leader of the Lyari gang war and chief of proscribed Peoples Amn Committee (PAC), in a targeted operation outside Karachi on Saturday.
Rangers arrested Baloch in a targeted operation outside Karachi early Saturday while he was attempting to enter the city, said a press release issued by the paramilitary force.
Baloch, leader of one of the gangs operating in crime-infested Lyari, was arrested in Dubai by the Interpol in December 2014 while he was crossing into the United Arab Emirates from Oman by road, police authorities had confirmed at the time.
Once known for his loyalty to the Pakistan Peoples Party and close contacts with the party’s leaders and senior members in the Sindh cabinet, eg former home minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza, Uzair Baloch took over as leader of Peoples Amn Committee in Aug 2009 when the notorious Abdul Rahman Baloch alias Rahman Dakait was killed in an encounter more than a year after the PPP government came to power.
Though the committee is presented as community group by its leaders, it is blamed for its criminal activities which included killings, extortion and drugs business both by police and rival parties of the PPP.
'Lyari operation'
Baloch's relations with the PPP started souring after April 2012 when the police launched ‘Lyari operation’. The two-week siege came to an end without any major arrest, but left a number of people, including policemen, dead.
The very next month the Sindh government announced bounty on most wanted criminals of the troubled Lyari neighbourhood. Uzair Baloch carried a prize of Rs2 million on his head.
The head money notification, however, was withdrawn a month before the May 2013 general elections — seen as a move by the PPP-influenced caretaker set-up to appease the Peoples Amn Committee, which enjoyed street power in Lyari, the party’s stronghold.
Differences within the Peoples Amn Committee and the widening gulf with the PPP government finally forced Uzair Baloch to leave Pakistan.
In June 2014, Islamabad, on a request by the Sindh government, asked Interpol to issue red warrants of Uzair Baloch and Noor Mohammad alias Baba Ladla., The latter was at one time Uzair’s close-aide, but later turned his rival.
The arrest of the alleged gangster, who was once mentioned as ‘wanted’ on Interpol website ‘by the authorities of Pakistan for prosecution’ for ‘murder charges,’ sparked an angry reaction in Lyari. Most shopkeepers had shuttered their businesses after learning about the development.
In 2012, a court warranted for the arrest of two leaders of the banned People’s Aman Committee including Uzair Baloch and an alleged member of the proscribed Balochistan Liberation Army in illicit weapons cases.
The police claimed to have detained the suspects in 2012 and alleged that the explosive stuff and illicit weapons were found in their possessions and they were involved in supplying arms and ammunition to criminals associated with the Lyari gang warfare.
Uzair Baloch had been declared a proclaimed offender in the case and the court had ruled that proceedings against the offender would be conducted in absentia under Section 19 (10) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.
