Four-member committee formed to probe Maulana Adil’s murder

KARACHI: A four-member high level inquiry committee has been formed to probe the target killing of renowned religious scholar Maulana Muhammad Adil Khan to probe a case.

The head of the Jamia Farooqia seminary was killed in Karachi’s Shah Faisal Colony area. The four-member inquiry committee, headed by Additional IG Karachi, was formed by the IGP Sindh. DIG Counter-Terrorism Department Omar Shahid Hamid, East Zone DIG Noman Siddiqui East and SSP Korangi Faisal Abdullah Chachar are the members of the committee. The committee will submit its progress report to the IG on the daily basis.

Police have made a sketch of one of the three suspects behind the Maulana Adil Khan and his driver’s killings in Karachi. The sketch was made by the Korangi police with the help of witnesses and CCTV footages. The police have issued a sketch in the media to get help in tracing and arresting a suspect.

The police after the passage of three days have registered a case against unidentified persons for assassinating Sunni religious scholar Maulana Professor Dr Muhammad Adil Khan, who was gunned down in a brazen attack in Karachi’s Shah Faisal Colony area on Saturday night.

Police said that the case was registered under Sections 302/34 reads with 7 of the anti-terrorism act at the Shah Faisal Colony police station on behalf of SHO Inspector Sikandar Khan. According to a complainant in the FIR, the police got the information via Madadgar Police helpline 15 at around 7:45pm on Saturday night by a caller, namely Bilal about firing on a car near the Shama Shopping Center in Shah Faisal Colony by armed men, adding that reacting on information, police reached the crime scene within five minutes. The police reached the site where it was learnt that three armed men on a motorcycle – two of them wore trousers, shirts and one clad in Shalwar Kameez opened fire at a Toyota Vigo at around 7:40pm and then escaped on a Honda 125 motorcycle. The officer said that the police have registered a case against three unidentified persons while the Shah Faisal police station’s investigation wing and Counter-Terrorism Department of the Sindh Police were investigating the case.

The police registered a case on behalf of the state after Maulana Dr Adil Khan's family refused to register the case. The police investigators failed to trace and arrest the perpetrators of the high profile targeted killing of a renowned religious scholar in Karachi three days after the killing.

Prof Dr Adil Khan was the third top Sunni religious leader to have been attacked in the metropolitan city within a span of roughly six years. On March 22, 2019, Jamia Darul Uloom Karachi’s Mufti Usmani was on his way to deliver the Friday sermon at Jamia Masjid Baitul Mukarram on the University Road when two motorbike pillion riders fired at his car on the ramp of the Nipa flyover.

Earlier on February 15, 2015, Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat chief Maulana Farooqi came under a terrorist attack in the city’s District Korangi during the wee hours and survived the attempt on his life. Investigators believed that the same foreign-funded sleeper cell is likely to be involved in the series of attacks on Sunni religious leaders in Karachi.

Maulana Adil and his driver were gunned down in an incident of targeted killing in Shah Faisal Colony on Saturday night while he was returning from Darul Uloom, Karachi after visiting the renowned religious scholar Mufti Taqi Usmani. Son of religious scholar Maulana Saleemullah Khan, 60-year-old Dr Adil Khan became Jamia Farooqia’s administrator after his father’s death. Dr Khan had stopped in Shah Faisal Colony to do some shopping. He was in his vehicle with his driver when motorbike pillion riders fired shots at both of them.

Clerics and leaders of religious parties on Tuesday announced a strike on Friday at the end of their 48-hour ultimatum to the government for arresting the killers of Maulana Dr Adil Khan, the Jamia Farooqia seminary’s principal.

Noted religious leaders and scholars on Tuesday gathered at Jamia Binoria seminary to discuss the future plan of action after completion of the ultimatum of 48 hours given to the government to arrest the killers of Maulana Adil Khan.

Leaders of the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam-Fazl, the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jammat, Jamaat-i-Ishaat-e-Tauheed Wa Sunnah, Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam-Sami, Tanzeemul Ulema Karachi and other groups attended the meeting.

After consultation, the religious scholars in a press conference at the seminary announced that a country-wide strike will be observed and protest will be held on Friday.

“The decision has been taken after consultations with all religious parties, religious scholars and principals of madrassas,” said Maulana Aurangzeb Farooqi, a leader of proscribed ASWJ. He said that the religious groups have been consulting political parties, trade and transport bodies and other stakeholders to support the religious parties’ call for strike to show concerns over the federal and Sindh government’s failure to arrest the assassins of Maulana Dr Adil Khan.

“We appeal to the people, traders and transporters to make the strike call a success by keeping their businesses shut and vehicles off the road on Friday,” he said. “They [terrorists] are shedding blood of the Deobandi ulema and no one is taking any action,” said Farooqi, who had also survived several assasination attempts in Karachi.

Leaders of religious parties in the press conference also criticized the Sindh government for withdrawing security from prominent religious scholars who have been facing threats.