Targeted attack: SSP’s founding member shot dead in Karachi

KARACHI: A former key leader of banned sectarian outfit Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) was killed in a drive-by shooting in Karachi on Sunday.

The killing of Maulana Rafiqul Khalil, who served as SSP’s chief in Karachi in the 1990s, came on the heels of a failed assassination attempt on his successor Maulana Aurangzeb Farooqui five days ago. The SSP has morphed into Ahle Sunnat wal Jamaat (ASWJ) since it was outlawed by the government in 2002.

Police said gunmen riding a motorcycle shot dead Maulana Khalil near Hill Park on Shaheed-e-Millat Road. He was the principal of Madrassa al Furqan in Korangi neighbourhood and prayer leader at Bahadurabad’s Alamgir Masjid. He lived in a residential quarter at the same mosque.

The Maulana was returning home from his seminary when his white colour high-roof came under attack. “Two armed motorcyclists approached the van and opened fire on the Maulana,” his driver Ghulam Rasool, who remained unhurt in the attack, told The Express Tribune. “The Maulana was shot but I managed to drive him to the mosque,” he added.

From the mosque, Maulana Khalil was driven to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre where medics pronounced him dead on arrival. He received two bullets, though the gunmen fired six.

Maulana Khalil, a renowned Sunni Deoband cleric, was one of the founding members of the defunct SSP. This was the second attempt on his life attack on him. In 2006, he had survived an assassination bid in the al Falah area of Malir.

The killing sparked tension in some neighbourhoods of the city including Bahadurabad, Korangi, Nagan Chowrangi and North Karachi where extra contingents of law enforcers were called in to maintain order.

Police see sectarian motives behind the killing. Humayun Khan, the SHO of Ferozabad police station, said initial investigation suggests the killing was motivated by sectarian hatred. An FIR has been registered at the police station by the cleric’s driver.

A spokesperson for the ASWJ said Maulana Khalil’s assassination was part of the ongoing targeted attacks on Deoband scholars, leaders, workers and their sympathisers. “Only recently, Aurangzeb Farooqui survived a targeted attack but the government is not taking any action,” said the spokesperson, Maulana Taj Hanafi.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 31^st, 2012.