Shot dead: Akhund Derwaiza shrine caretaker gunned down

Sixty-year-old Mian Ghulam Shah had been working at the shrine for the past 25 years.

PESHAWAR:

The caretaker of the historic Akhund Derwaiza’s shrine situated in Rahman Baba graveyard was gunned down inside the shrine by unidentified armed men on Thursday evening.

Sixty-year-old Mian Ghulam Shah was a resident of Surizai and had been taking care of the shrine for the past 25 years. After receiving information of the attack, police reached the site and shifted the body to Pandhu police station.



Militants have targeted the shrine earlier as well. In 2009, they torched it down and threatened to kill Shah who managed to flee. The residents of Hazara Khwani village rebuilt the shrine on self-help basis and the caretaker returned in 2010.

In 2009, the shrine of sufi poet Rahman Baba was also bombed by militants based in Khyber Agency.

Akhund Derwaiza is considered one of the most influential Afghan religious personalities of the Mughal era. He is especially known for his struggle against Pir Baized Ansari, popularly known as Pir Roshan among his followers.



The spate of attacks on shrines and their caretakers are blamed on banned militant outfit, Lashkar-e-Islam, which is an open critic of the custom of visiting shrines and practicing Sufism.

Three bombs defused

Police defused three bombs in Badabher and Mattani on the outskirts of the city on Thursday. Unidentified terrorists had planted a bomb along main Kohat Road in Sephen, which was spotted in time and defused by police. At least five kilogrammes of homemade explosives were used in the attempt. The bomb’s target was a police mobile, but the sabotage bid was thwarted by timely action by the authorities. In a separate incident, two bombs weighing eight kilogrammes each were defused in the Sherkera Mattani area. The devices had been planted around six meters apart along an unpaved road in the area, and their targets were vehicles carrying members of Adezai’s pro-government Aman Lashker. Police managed to defuse the bombs before they were detonated.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 29^th, 2013.