Three musketeers: Third musketeer was involved in killing outside judge’s house

According to Munir and Jamil, Abdullah took them with him to rob Abideen and then opened fire.

KARACHI:

Two men arrested for killing a family friend of Justice Retd. Zawwar Hussian Jafri, outside his house on Friday, confessed to intending to rob him.

Munir and Jamil were arrested by the police after the shooting, but the third companion Abdullah escaped. According to them, both of them had no intention of killing Zainul Abideen. They said that Abdullah planned the robbery and had asked them to come with him.

“Let’s go rob someone,” Munir and Jamil quoted Abdullah as saying. “We went with him. But he opened fire as soon as he got there which shocked us too,” the interrogators quoted both as saying.

Abideen was shot when he was leaving for Friday prayers with Sarfaraz, Jafri’s son. It was reported that around seven armed men in a silver Suzuki Cultus and a motorcycle opened fire at Sarfaraz’s car. But the suspects said that there were only three of them, including Abdullah.

Sources privy to the matter told The Express Tribune that Abdullah called on the cell phones of Munir and Jamil after they were arrested.

Interestingly, a burqa and a bottle of spirit were found in the attackers’ car. This leads anti terrorism experts to suspect that the men might also be related to an unsuccessful attack on the Karachi Port Trust in 2008. A burqa was also found from the terrorists with suicide jackets and weapons.

The chief of Anti-Extremist Cell, SSP Chaudhry Aslam Khan, said that it would be premature to say anything about the link between the attack on KPT and Abideen’s killing but the possibility cannot be ruled out. The intelligence network was alerted to arrest Abdullah who is suspected to be the member of a banned organisation.

According to the investigators, Munir and Jamil hail from Multan and live in PIB Colony. The Suzuki Cultus used by them has no previous criminal record, and the police are trying to track down its owner. The registered owner said that he sold the car. The police now believe that it belonged to a rent-a-car. The suspects were booked for terrorism, murder, attempt to murder and attack on the police, in the FIR, on the request of Faisal Mehmood who is a friend of Abideen.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 6^th, 2011.