LAHORE - Uzair Baloch, the notorious kingpin of Lyari, expressed willingness to become approver when he found out that a hit on his life had been sanctioned by his former bosses to stop his custody falling into the hands of a premier intelligence agency, official sources close to the Baloch episode told The Nation yesterday.
According to the conspiracy, Baloch was to be killed by his opponent gangs in Pakistan or in a staged encounter when his accomplices made a so-called effort to free him while going for a court appearance into the custody of the law enforcers.
Another conspiracy to kill him in the jail was also planned if he his custody was given to civilian authorities by UAE, said official sources.
Baloch who was the head of outlawed People’s Peace Committee also confirmed these developments through his contacts in Karachi.
After getting the information regarding hit on his life, he expressed readiness to a key security service to become an approver against his former bosses.
Baloch, according to the official sources, has spilled all the beans as to when, where and upon whose directives he committed crimes of target killing, extortion, money-laundering and land grabbing.
He was arrested in Dubai on December 29, 2014, by Interpol when he was entering the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from Muscat by road.
The authorities in Pakistan sent a team of Karachi police in the first week of 2015 to get the custody of Baloch, but they couldn’t succeed.
The same team visited UAE later and held several times meetings with Interpol and other security officials, but did not succeed.
According to the official sources, the authorities in UAE had been given ample proof of Baloch’s assassination if he was handed over to the people who were undertaking marathon rounds of the Gulf state. Later, Baloch also verified the information of the key security agency to the authorities.
Finally, his custody was secretly handed over to a team of premier security agency which brought him to Peshawar last year. Baloch landed in Karachi three days back where a Rangers party formally arrested him.
During his stay in Peshawar, Baloch, in a more than 50-minute video confession, made shocking revelations about his former bosses, including PPP top leader and former president Asif Ali Zardari, Sharjeel Inam Memon, Awais Muzaffar Tappi and Zulfiqar Mirza.
He said in the video confession that the top PPP leaders gave him direct orders of target killings, extortion, land grabbing and money laundering.
“I was provided with lists of target killings and extortion targets,” said Baloch in his confessional statement.
He also confessed to the assassination of Khalid Shehenshah, a key witness of PPP chairperson and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination on the direction of a top political figure.
Baloch also divulged some connections between Karachi’s organised crime syndicates and banned outfits of TTP’s umbrella groups like Jundullah and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, according to official sources.
He was presented before an anti-terrorism court by the Rangers who demanded his 90-day remand that was granted by the court. The court also ordered formation of a JIT for interrogation into 30 cases.
Baloch left Pakistan in 2013 after the launch of an operation. Rangers last Monday sent a letter to the Sindh Home Department, seeking a joint investigation team (JIT) for the interrogation of Baloch.