ASWJ leader gunned down in Rawalpindi

ISLAMABAD: A prominent leader of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), Maulana Mazhar Siddiqui, was gunned down while another leader sustained injuries in a targeted attack near Pir Wadhai Mor on Sunday morning, police said.
The ASWJ Spokesman, Maulana Mazhar Siddiqui, was going to Westridge from Golra Mor along with another leader, Muhammad Ibrahim, on a Qingqi rickshaw while bike riding gunmen intercepted them and opened fire on them and sped away towards Westridge.
The passers-by shifted the body of Maulana Mazhar Siddiqui and wounded Maulana Muhammad Ibrahim to a hospital. The Sabzi Mandi police registered the case but could not yet get any clue about the attackers.
Meanwhile, ASWJ’s top leadership reached the hospital and shifted the body to Lal Masjid for Namaz-e-Janaza. Then it decided to protest against the target killing and announced that the Namaz-e-Janaza would be offered in front of the Supreme Court building.
Consequently, the ASWJ activists started marching towards the Constitution Avenue with the body, but the police intercepted the protesters and asked the leadership that they would not be allowed to go ahead. The police hurled teargas shells to disperse the protesters but they kept marching on the Constitution Avenue towards the Supreme Court building and staged a sit-in there.
Meanwhile, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, taking serious notice of repeated incidents of security lapses, called a high-level meeting to make a strategy to counter such incidents.