ISIS flag appears on major Islamabad road; cops clueless

The flag of the terror outfit Islamic State (also known as Daesh) was hoisted at one of the main roads in the Pakistan capital of Islamabad on Sunday.

Unidentified people put up the flag reading "Khilafat (Caliphate) is coming" on a billboard at an overhead pedestrian bridge on Islamabad's busiest 10-lane expressway. Police later removed the flag on the complaint of a passer-by.

"I informed the police because I knew that this was IS's flag," said the bystander.

Police have registered a case against unknown people for putting on display a flag of proscribed organisation. Interior minister Ahsan Iqbal has sought report from the police and ordered them to identify and arrest the people responsible for the act.

A senior police officer told Pakistan Today that police received a call at 11:45 am from the passerby who informed them of the development.

Senior Superintendent of Police (Operations) Sajid Kayani told Pakistan Today that an investigation team has been constituted to probe the matter and will submit its report within two days. The SSP said it is premature to say that the flag had been put up by the IS.

The police are trying to nab the men who put up the flag with the help of CCTV cameras; over 1,900 surveillance cameras were installed in the city under the Safe City Project at cost of over Pakistani Rs13 billion.

A police official said a case would be registered under Section 11-G of the Anti-Terrorism Act, which prohibits the display of any article, symbol, flag or banner associated with any proscribed organisation. A suspect under this section can be sentenced to imprisonment or fine or both through the summary procedure.

People expressed surprise that the miscreants went unnoticed despite an extensive network of CCTV cameras in the capital.

However, government officials said the cameras were unlikely to have captured the footage of the culprits as they have been installed at an angle focusing on traffic rather than the pedestrian bridge.