Rao Anwar to file lawsuit against US govt over sanctions

KARACHI: Former senior superintendent of police Rao Anwar, on Wednesday said that he should be gunned down in a street-center if found involved in league with criminals.

In a video message issued on Wednesday, Anwar vowed to fight a legal battle to clear his name. “I will file a lawsuit with the help of my counsel in America.

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He said, I will also write a letter to the US consulate,” he can be heard saying in the video.

Apart from Anwar, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had also designated 17 other individuals on the occasion of International Human Rights Day.

The US Treasury Department, in a statement issued on Tuesday, said that Anwar helped to lead a network of police and criminal thugs that were allegedly responsible for extortion, land grabbing, narcotics, and murder.

“Anwar was reportedly responsible for staging numerous fake police encounters in which individuals were killed by police.

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He was involved in over 190 police encounters that resulted in the deaths of over 400 people, including the murder of Naqeebullah Mehsood,” read the statement.

Naqeebullah Mehsood, a young man from Waziristan region, was killed on January 13, 2018 in Karachi during a fake encounter allegedly staged by Rao.

A police inquiry later established the encounter was staged.

The extrajudicial killing sparked nationwide outraged with a Pashtun rights group later using it as a rallying call.

Rao Anwar declared the US sanctions against him a conspiracy against Pakistan
The US is doing this to divert the world's attention from Kashmir, I will make a case through my lawyer in Washington.
America will have to apologize to me
Thanks America
Thanks @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/8PhD8yBbhN

— Sohail Noor Khan (@sohailnoorkhan) December 11, 2019

The former Malir SSP, often dubbed as ‘encounter specialist’, said he was blamed for the extrajudicial killing of over 400 people, but yet to receive any formal complaint in any case except the one he is currently facing the court proceedings against.

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“I fought against terrorism alongside state institutions, there is a group deliberately doing a false propaganda against me and American government has also become victim of the same campaign and acted against me,” he claimed.

“The US government would have to prove my links to criminals or else render an apology,” he added.

Anwar said the move is an attempt to defame Pakistan and divert the world’s attention from the Kashmir issue.