Targeted killings: Police still groping in the dark

Officials say all December killings related.

KARACHI:

The police have made no arrests in targeted killings which claimed the lives of a scout and a prayer leader on Tuesday.

Scout Nayyar Abbas was gunned down in Orangi Town within the jurisdiction of Mominabad police station while a prayer leader of a mosque in Gulbahar, Maulana Abdus Samad Soomro was shot dead in Gulbahar police remits.

DSP Tariq Malik said that the police was looking for eyewitnesses to prepare the sketch of culprits and also approaching police officials who were investigating the case of Nayyar’s brother, Imran, who was also gunned down two months ago in North Nazimabad.

The police have registered an FIR against unidentified men on the complaint of Ashraf Abbas, father of Nayyar Abbas who was laid to rest at the Wadi-e-Hussain graveyard on Wednesday.

However, no FIR was lodged in case of Maulana Abdus Samad Soomro and police said they were waiting for the family to come forward. His body was sent to his hometown, Shikarpur, for burial.

Ashraf Abbas said that his son (Nayyar Abbas) was killed on sectarian grounds as “we have no personal enmity with anyone”.

He also alleged that olice was trying to change the nature of the incident. The police had earlier stated that Nayyar was killed while offering resistance in a robbery attempt.

However, on Wednesday police investigators believed that rival sectarian groups were behind the latest incidents of targeted killings. Fearing more such incidents in the future, police officials said that they were in contact with leaders of different groups and were also interrogating activists of banned outfits in their custody.

Police officials said that the initial investigation indicated that the Numaish Chowrangi incident in which two scouts were killed on 1st Muharram led to recent incidents of target killings.

The killings of Ahmed Qamar, son of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam leader Maulana Qamaruddin in Shah Faisal Colony, and dermatologist Dr Mehboob Siddiqui in Al-Falah locality were a chained reaction, they said.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29^th, 2011.