Targeted attack: Faculty members being investigated in Prof Auj’s murder case

Police fail to figure out what happened as they have not been able to get hold of any visuals.

KARACHI: Three faculty members who used to work with Prof Dr Muhammad Shakil Auj, the dean of KU's Islamic Studies faculty, are being investigated by the police to see if they had any connection with the professor's murder. So far, they have not found any evidence which suggests the men were involved.

The police have not had any luck figuring out what happened or who was behind the killing as they have not been able to get hold of any visuals.

They claim that there were no cameras installed on the route from Prof Auj's house to Khana-e-Farhang Iran, and added, that in areas where a CCTV was installed, there was no footage to be found.

Dr Auj was on his way to attend an event at the Iranian Cultural Centre on Thursday morning when unidentified men opened fire at him in Gulshan-e-Iqbal at 10:45am. He was shot in the head with a 9mm bullet and died on the spot.

Investigations

There are three ways the police are looking into the case, including the ongoing sectarian target killings in the city, as well as the blasphemy accusations that surfaced against Dr Auj around two years ago. Dr Auj had been accused of blasphemy and on November 6, 2012, he had registered an FIR 460/12 in the Mobina Town police station, stating that there was a message being circulated - declaring him guilty of blasphemy, and thus liable to be killed.

Three faculty members - Dr Abdul Rasheed, Dr Obaid Ahmed Khan, Dr Naseer Ahmed Akhtar and a NED university employee, Samiuz Zaman, were later accused of being involved in circulating the text message and threatening him.

Following the registration of the FIR in 2012, Dr Rasheed and Zaman were formally arrested by the police but were later released on bail while the other two - Dr Obaid Ahmed Khan and Dr Naseer Ahmed Akhtar were on bail before arrest.

"There has been no breakthrough in Auj's case but we are trying our best," said DSP Nasir Lodhi while talking to The Express Tribune. The police are also trying to figure out if it was an inside job.

"Thank God, I was at home," said Dr Naseer Akhtar while talking to The Express Tribune. "It was proved in the  2012 investigations that I wasn't involved in anything. The investigating officer also said so."

Another teacher from the same faculty, Dr Maulana Masood Baig, was also shot and killed in a similar manner in North Nazimabad last week. The investigators are also looking into the case and are trying to see if there are any links between the two. There are no CCTV footages or eye-witness accounts in both cases.

The only way the police can find a link between the two is a ballistics match - see if the bullets were fired from the same weapon.

The police said that they have asked the forensics division to cross check.

"We do not have any footage in both the cases," said a senior police official who did not wish to be named. "There are no eye-witnesses to help the police with a sketch of the assailants either. The one thing we are doing is sending the bullet casings for a cross-check."

Meanwhile, an FIR 478/14 was registered at the Aziz Bhatti police station and includes sections related to murder, attempted murder and terrorism against unidentified persons on behalf of the victim's family.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 20^th, 2014.