Cleric gunned down in Bajaur ambush

Police say vehicle of Maulana Naseeb waylaid while he was heading home; friend critically injured

BAJAUR:

Yet another cleric has been gunned down in Bajaur tribal district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P).

Police told The Express Tribune that in the Mamond area of Bajaur, unidentified miscreants opened fire. As a result, Maulana Naseeb Gul was killed on the spot while his friend Mufti Shafiullah critically injured.

“Both of them were on their way back home in a motorcar after shopping in the Lagharai Bazaar when unidentified men ambushed them,” a police official said, adding that the attackers managed to flee after committing the crime.

The injured was rushed to the Khar Hospital for treatment from where he was referred to the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH).

Police reached the site of the attack and cordoned off the entire area and conducted a door-to-door search operation. Local residents said that the slain cleric was a member of the Panjpiri group which is also known as Wahabi sect.

Attacks on clerics

Many Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) clerics and senior party members have been killed in Bajaur district in recent years.

In March 2021, JUI leader Maulana Abdul Salam was seriously injured in a remote-controlled bomb blast in the Dama Dola area of Mamund tehsil in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s Bajaur tribal district.

Police officials told The Express Tribune that Maulana Salam was going to his madrassah early in the morning when he was hit by a roadside bomb. Police believed that a remote-controlled explosive device had been planted by the roadside and he was precisely the target.

He was later shifted to Peshawar for treatment where he succumbed to his injuries days later.

The attack was claimed by Islamic State-Khorasan.

In April 2022, Mufti Shafiullah, a JUI activist and an Arabic teacher at Government High School Badan, was targeted in a roadside bomb attack as he was on his way to school as per his daily routine.

“Mufti Shafiullah was going to school. As per his habit he walked to school and during his walk, an IED device exploded near him. He was seriously injured in the explosion and rushed to a hospital where he succumbed to his wounds,” the district police officer said.

“The deceased was an active member of Jamiat,” he said.

In November 2022, another ardent activist of JUI-F, Qari Ilyas, was shot dead in the tribal district and for the first time in the history of the tribal district, women staged a sit-in against the brutal murder.

Widespread protests erupted against the murder which continued for two days. The women of the Qari Ilyas family, including his widow and mother, also participated in the sit-in. They blamed that Qari Ilays repeatedly demanded of the authorities that there were threats to his life but it was denied each time so the district administration was responsible for his death.

All the markets in Bajaur district also remained closed in protest.

Lawyers also didn’t attend the courts as a mark of solidarity with the strike.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 10^th, 2023.