Police suspect RAW behind murder of educationist

Officials investigating the Sunday night target killing of educationist Syed Khalid Raza in Karachi’s Gulistan-e-Jauhar neighbourhood suspect the involvement of India’s spy agency in the incident.

Raza, the Karachi region deputy director of the Dar-e-Arqam Schools and the vice chairman of the Federation of Private Schools, was shot dead shortly after leaving his house and moving towards his car.

One of the two men on a motorbike had shot him in the head, killing him on the spot. Police believe that the killer was a sharpshooter. They said the assailant had used a 30-bore pistol in the incident, as they had found a single empty bullet casing of a 30-bore pistol from the crime scene and sent it to the forensic division of the Sindh police for ballistics cross-matching.

They added that according to the forensic report, the casing had no previous record, suggesting that the weapon used in the incident had never been used in any other incident before. Police suspect that India’s foreign intelligence agency, the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), facilitated a local group in the murder, as the Sindhudesh Revolutionary Army (SRA) had claimed responsibility for the incident, saying that Raza was a former commander of the Kashmir freedom fighters group Al-Badr.

The year 2023 does not seem good for Pakistan in terms of peace, as the country has suffered several acts of terrorism after the activation of sleeper cells of different militant organisations, while the law enforcement agencies are yet to solve these cases and bring the groups behind all the violence to justice.

After a series of attacks in Peshawar, Islamabad and Karachi, incidents of terrorism have taken another turn, as within seven days, two key personalities apparently on RAW’s hit list have been killed in Pakistan.

On February 21, Hizbul Mujahideen commander Bashir Ahmed Pir, alias Imtiaz Alam, had been killed in Rawalpindi by unidentified gunmen. Moreover, Zahid Akhund of Jaish-e-Muhammad had been killed in Karachi’s Mehmoodabad neighbourhood last year.

Police officials believe that Raza, Pir and Akhund’s murders might be connected. They said they were trying to establish a link between the three incidents. “It seems that the masterminds are the same, but the assailants and their weapons have changed,” explained a senior police official. “But the modus operandi in all the three killings is the same.”

It is pertinent to mention here that the investigators have also collected some evidences that suggest RAW could also have facilitated the recent Karachi Police Office attack that claimed at least five lives and left some 18 others injured.

Raza’s funeral prayers were offered on Monday, and he was then laid to rest in the Model Colony graveyard of Shah Faisal Colony. No case was registered until the filing of this news story.

Talking to The News, Gulistan-e-Jauhar SHO Safdar Mashwani confirmed that Raza was a victim of a targeted attack, and that the SRA had claimed responsibility for the murder. He said that local facilitators are apparently being used for achieving RAW’s targets. The investigation of the case is likely to be transferred to the Counter Terrorism Department.