Targeted: Allama Abbas Kumaili’s son shot dead in Azizabad

KARACHI:

Jafria Alliance Pakistan chief and former Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) senator Allama Abbas Kumaili’s son, 42-year-old Allama Ali Akbar Kumaili, was shot dead in Bhangoria Goth, along with his guard on Saturday, within the limits of the Azizabad police station.

According to the Mujlis-e-Wahdatul Muslimeen’s (MWM) spokesperson, Ali Akbar was going home with his children from his ice factory located in Bhangoria Goth, Block-2 of Azizabad, when unidentified armed men, waiting for him near the factory, opened fire at them. Akbar was shot thrice - twice in his chest and once in his abdomen - and his guard Jumman Khan was shot twice. Both men were taken to the Ziauddin Hospital in critical condition but succumbed to their injuries while receiving treatment.

MWM’s Allama Raja Nasir Abbas Jafri condemned the incident and said that a series of targeted killings of members of the Shia community is underway in Karachi and the government has failed to control it. “Police and Rangers have failed to arrest culprits behind the killings of doctors, scholars and teachers and lawyers belonging to the Shia community,” he said, adding that the killings have exposed the ‘so-called’ targeted operation against militants in Karachi. “Government and law enforcement agencies have completely failed to eliminate terrorists and protect the Shia community of Karachi from terrorists,” he said.

Jafri demanded an army-led operation in Karachi against the terrorists involved in the killings of Shias in Karachi.

Hundreds of protesters, under the umbrella of the Majlis-e-Wahdat-e-Muslimeen and the Jafria Alliance, gathered at main Numaish Chowrangi and staged a protest against the incident. They also set tyres on fire and blocked the flow of traffic, causing massive traffic jam on the MA Jinnah Road and its surrounding areas. However, the traffic police allocated alternate routes for the flow of traffic.

Meanwhile, Karachi AIG Ghulam Qadir Thebo while taking notice of the incident has constituted an inquiry team comprising  officials of district Central, Special Investigation Unit and the Crime Investigation Department, and has asked the team to submit a report within the next 24 hours.

The Jafria Alliance has announced a three-day mourning period, a call that has been backed by the MQM.

Condemnations

Various prominent personalities such as Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, MQM chief Altaf Hussain, Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, Sindh Governer Dr Ishratul Ebad and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Imran Khan condemned the killing and dubbed it as an attempt to divide the Sunni and Shia communities.

Pakistan Peoples Party patron-in-chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, in a press release, termed the attack as an attack on the ‘roots of this country and its historic diversity’.

Following the incident, tensions ran high in a few areas of the city, along with several districts of Sindh, including Khairpur and Larkana.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 7^th, 2014.