ASWJ upset that Aurangzeb Farooqi’s attackers are still free

At a rally on Sunday, they said that the govt has only paid lip service.

KARACHI: Ahle Sunnat wal Jamaat (ASWJ) activists staged a rally on Sunday to protest against the fact that the government and law enforcement agencies had not taken any ‘concrete steps’ to arrest the culprits behind the attack on the party’s leader, Maulana Aurangzeb Farooqi. 

The ASWJ leader was attacked on December 25 by armed men on at least four motorcycles who intercepted his vehicle in Gulshan-e-Iqbal. Six men were killed in the incident. Over a week after the attack, ASWJ activists and leaders are unhappy with the law enforcers’ progress to arrest the culprits. The rally started near Guru Mandir, where activists held placards and banners, shouting slogans against the government. ASWJ leader Maulana Rab Nawaz Hanafi addressed the crowd, saying, “Ten days have passed since the attack but the killers are roaming freely as the government continues to do little apart from providing us false assurance.” He alleged that foreign elements were involved in the attack on Maulana Farooqui as well as other ASWJ members.  Hanfi said that ASWJ had earlier decided to hold sit-in at Numaish Chowrangi till the attackers were arrested.



“But we turned the sit-in into a rally on the government request. We don’t want to do anything to worsen the city’s law and order situation. But this should not be taken as our weakness.” He said that the government said the culprits would be arrested within a week, but could not keep its word, adding that the weak response highlights the fact that law enforcers are discriminating against ASWJ. “If the government takes the case objectively, they can arrest the killers within a day,” said Hanifi.

In his speech at the rally, Maulana Taj Muhammad Hanfi, another ASWJ leader, claimed that over 300 activists and supporters of the group were killed in the city last year while hundreds were seriously injured in targeted attacks. He demanded the government to announce compensations to the victims’ families.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 7^th, 2013.