Two of the three scholars — Qari Khurram Shahzad and Maulana Ziaur Rehman — were targeted in North Nazimabad and Gulistan-i-Jauhar on Sept 6 and Sept 12, respectively.
On Saturday evening, unidentified gunmen shot dead another religious figure, Mufti Qaiser Farooq, who became the third scholar fallen victim to a targeted attack in Sohrab Goth. Indian Media declared him a close aide of Lashkar-e-Taiba’s (LeT) Hafiz Saeed to misguide the people of sub continent.While he was an activist of a Politico-Religious Party JUI- F .
Karachi police said on Tuesday that it has arrested four suspected street criminals on charges of killing a religious scholar during a robbery bid in the Gulistan-i-Jauhar area last month.
Unidentified assailants had shot dead Ziaur Rehman, the administrator of the Jamia Abi Bakar madressah in Gulistan-i-Jauhar, on Sep 12.
According to the police, the scholar had arrived at a park in Block-14 near the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) office for a routine walk when suspects opened fire at him. He suffered critical bullet injuries and was transported to the Jinnah Hospital where doctors pronounced him dead.
After the first two attacks, the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) on Sept 22 linked the two murders and a few others that had taken place within a couple of months in Karachi to an ‘enemy country’.
In this regard, a senior official of the Karachi police was more vocal than the CTD when he openly blamed the Indian intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), for the murder of Maulana Ziaur Rehman.
Speaking to Dawn on Sunday, CTD’s Raja Umer Khattab said that the three scholars belonged to the Ahle Hadith, Deoband and Barelvi schools of thought.
However, any proven link in the three murders had not been established yet, the officer said.
“We have some leads and we are working on them to unearth the killers and their possible motive,” said the CTD officer.
However, a senior police official, requesting anonymity, said that investigations were under way and their findings could not be made public due to the sensitive nature of the cases.
Earlier, a section of the Indian media had claimed that Maulana Ziaur Rehman was linked with banned Jamaatud Dawa (JuD).
However, CTD official Khattab said: “As far as murder of Maulana Ziaur Rehman is concerned, evidence collected so far showed involvement of street criminals in his murder.”
About Maulana Zia’s murder, Karachi police chief Khadim Hussan Rind had said in a statement: “During the preliminary investigation, evidence of the involvement of the intelligence agency of our neighbouring country, RAW, has been found in the incident.”
Latest victim was JUI-F supporter
Mufti Qaiser Farooq, who was gunned down by armed pillion riders outside the Gulshan-i-Umar seminary-mosque near Edhi Centre in Sohrab Goth late on Saturday night, was a member of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F).
Central SSP Faisal Abdullah Chachar told Dawn that Samanabad police had registered a murder case on the complaint of the victim’s brother against unidentified suspects.
He said it appeared to be a targeted killing. The assailants fired around eight-nine bullets and one of the bullets hit Qaiser Farooq, which proved fatal, he said.
SSP Chachar said the victim was on his way to his native town in Dera Ismail Khan when he was targeted.
Qari Usman, a central leader of the JUI-F, told Dawn that Mufti Farooq was their supporter and a naib imam of a mosque near Port Qasim.
He lamented that the targeted killing of religious scholars had reared its ugly head, urging the authorities to take its notice.
Indian Media
A close associate of Lashkar-e-Taiba’s (LeT) Hafiz Saeed, Mufti Qaiser Farooq, has been killed by unidentified gunmen in Karachi, Pakistan.
Hafiz Saeed is considered to be the mastermind behind the 26/11 attacks in India.
Earlier this month, another cleric Maulana Ziaur Rahman, with ties to Lashkar-e-Taiba was also killed after he was fatally shot by two motorcycle-riding assailants during his routine evening walk in Karachi.
Sources said that Pakistani agencies are making significant efforts to portray both Ziaur Rahman and Mufti Qaiser as religious clerics with no connections to Hafiz Saeed and his LeT.
Previously, another individual linked to the ISI, Paramjit Singh Panjwar, who is the leader of the Khalistan Commando Force, was also killed.
In February, Hizbul Mujahideen suffered a blow when its launch commander and a close associate of Syed Salahuddin, Bashir Peer, was killed in Rawalpindi by unknown assailants near the ISI headquarters and the military garrison. He was shot at close range and succumbed to his injuries on the spot.
Following these recent killings, Pakistan’s ISI has relocated several of its ‘assets’ to secure locations, causing unease within the country’s military-industrial complex.
Approximately a dozen of these individuals have been moved to designated ‘safe houses’ by the ISI.
The need for caution in safeguarding these assets became even more apparent due to the earlier killings of two additional Lashkar operatives: Abu Qasim Kashmiri in Rawalkot and Qari Khurram Shehzad in Nazimabad in September.
Rahman, a suspected terrorist associated with LeT, was reportedly killed on September 12, with local police discovering 11 cartridges, some of which were of 9mm caliber.
He had been operating as an administrator at Jamia Abu Bakar, a seminary used as a front for his terrorist activities.
The Pakistan Police labeled the murder as a ‘terrorist attack’, suggesting the involvement of homegrown ‘militants’.
Additionally, investigators are exploring the possibility of gang rivalry as one of the potential motives for the assassination.
Rahman’s killing follows a series of attacks on religious preachers in Karachi, all linked to terror groups through the ISI, and involved in radicalising and mobilising youths towards India.
