Scholar’s killer arrested in Karachi

Karachi: The police on Sunday claimed to have arrested one of the murderers of Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, a prominent religious and pro-jihad scholar, who was assassinated in an ambush in May, 2004.

The accused, Wasi Haider, who belonged to a political party, was arrested from the Federal B Area neighbourhood in the central district.

It was suspected that Shamzai was targeted due to sectarianism, but the arrest of Haider suggested that it might be politically motivated.

“Yes it seems politically motivated as the accused belonged to a political party,” Feroz Shah, the deputy inspector-general of police, told Gulf News.

He said that Haider performed recce of Shamzai’s routine for his other accomplices, who shot him outside his home on a Sunday morning.

Shamzai, a revered scholar among the Deoband school of thought of Islam, was the mentor of Jaish E Mohammad, the banned jihadi outfit, which is headed by Maulana Masood Azhar, who is on the list of India’s most wanted men.

The police said that Haider moved to Karachi from Hyderabad city in 2002 and joined the political party in subsequent years. He took part in the assassination of Shamzai in 2004 as one of his maiden assignments.

In another high profile murder case, Haider was the among the shooter team, who ambushed the three religious personalities near the Nursery, in eastern district. Renowned religious scholar Abdul Majeed Deenpuri, Hafiz Mohammad Ahsan, and Mufti Sauleh Mohammad Qazi were killed in that attack in 2013.

The suspect has confessed to many other murders he committed for refusing extortion money and political differences as well.

Elsewhere in the city, law enforcement agencies had armed encounters with outlaws, in which at least five suspects were killed.

A spokesman of the paramilitary Rangers said that there was a shoot-out near the Adam Tea Store in volatile Lyari district, in which two alleged members of the Lyari gang were killed. They were identified as Adnan Baluch and Sajjad Gunga. some of their accomplices fled the scene, the spokesman said.

The police also carried a raid in Surjani Town in the western part of the city where two suspected militants were killed during the exchange of fires. In the Mominabad area, a man was killed in an alleged brief encounter with the police. Police said that the man was identified as Abdul Wahab, who was a drug peddler.