Mufti Taqi Usmani’s driver laid to rest

Renowned religious scholar and former judge Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani’s driver Amir Shahab, who was put on a ventilator after suffering multiple gunshots in an assassination attempt on Mufti Usmani last month, was laid to rest on Thursday.

Two people — police guard Farooq and private security guard Sanobar Khan — had lost their lives and two drivers wounded in an attempted assassination on Mufti Usmani on March 22.

Six men on three motorcycles were part of the assassination attempt, as two vehicles of Mufti Usmani came under fire at the Nipa flyover while the scholar was on his way from Darul Uloom Korangi to Baitul Mukarram Masjid on University Road in Gulshan-e-Iqbal to lead the Friday prayers.

Shahab’s funeral prayers were offered after the Zuhr prayers at Darul Uloom Korangi. Chief of Darul Uloom Korangi Mufti Rafi Usmani led the funeral prayers. Besides his family members, other relatives and friends, a large number of religious leaders, scholars and students of Darul Uloom attended the funeral.

The deceased was later laid to rest within the premises of Darul Uloom. He had got married last year and was a father of a boy. He had been associated with Darul Uloom Korangi as a driver for the last couple of years.

He had suffered multiple wounds in the chest and the head, following which he was put on a ventilator at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre. But he succumbed to his injuries late on Wednesday night, as according to the doctors, the bullet in his head had proved fatal.

A case is already registered at the Aziz Bhatti police station, but despite the passage of 13 days, the investigators are yet to arrest the key suspects.

The investigators have obtained a forensic report of the empty shells of two 9mm pistols used in the incident and they did not find any clue from the ballistics cross-matching. They said that the weapons used in the attack had no previous criminal record.

They believe foreign involvement in the incident and have also detained over half a dozen suspects who may have facilitated the assailants, but their arrests are yet to be disclosed. The investigators believe that the key suspects who carried out the attack and those who are the masterminds of the case have already left the country.