ASWJ leaders mull over future strategy as workers laid to rest

KARACHI:

Three members of a family, associated with the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), who were gunned down on Friday night, were laid to rest amid scenes of grief on Saturday.

The deceased, who included two brothers, Kashif Ahmed and Talib Ahmed, and their cousin, Saeed Ahmed, were shot dead in an act of targeted killing near Maskan Chowrangi. They were shot multiple times and succumbed to their injuries before they could reach Patel Hospital nearby. Both brothers lived near Maskan Chowrangi where they used to run their sweetshop. Their cousin had recently arrived from Multan and was living with them.

The incident occurred when they were sitting at a restaurant after closing their shop. Police claim to have collected around one dozen empty 9mm pistol shells from the crime scene and sent them to the Forensics Division for analysis.



Their funeral prayers were offered at the Siddiq-e-Akbar Masjid in Gulshan-e-Iqbal after Namaz-e-Zuhr. The deceased were subsequently buried at Shah Muhammad graveyard. A large number of people attended the funeral. They also staged a protest against the incident and demanded law enforcers arrest the culprits.

“One by one, our people are being killed and no one is here to stop the perpetrators,” said the ASWJ spokesperson, while talking to The Express Tribune.

“Law enforcement agencies are not sincere. They are only playing with us by giving statements or informing us about the involvement of a ‘third force’ behind the conspiracy. Why do they not arrest them when they know who is behind these killings?”

The spokesperson said that his party was conducting a separate inquiry into the incident, adding that they were inquiring the case from two separate angles.

“This could be a reaction to our demand for the authorities to shut down book stalls selling literature on sectarian hatred at the Karachi Expo Centre yesterday (Friday),” he said. “Alternatively, it could be a part of the ongoing sectarian-based targeted killings.”

The spokesperson reported that a meeting of ASWJ leaders was being held in Lahore where the central leaders would discuss the future strategy. He expressed, however, the belief that it was clear that a countrywide conspiracy was being hatched against the organisation.

Around two dozen people from both sects - Shia and Sunni - have been killed in separate targeted attacks in the city since the beginning of the month of Muharram. Top officials of Rangers and police have time and again claimed that the killings are the work of the militant wing of a political party that aims to incite sectarian violence.

The law enforcers have, however, not been able to successfully probe any of the incidents or arrest any of the culprits. In the recent killings on Friday, the law enforcers were also unable to trace the culprits or ascertain the motive behind the incident. “We have not found any clues to suggest the motive behind the incident yet,” Gulshan-e-Iqbal SHO Irfan Ahmed told The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 8^th, 2013.