Talib Jauhari’s son-in-law killed in ‘sectarian’ attack

Karachi
A senior lawyer who was also the son-in-law of prominent Shia scholar Allama Talib Jauhari and a housewife were killed in separate “sectarian” attacks on Wednesday.
Sixty-year-old Syed Mubarak Raza Kazmi was shot dead by four men riding two motorcycles in 13/B, Gulshan-e-Iqbal.
Kazmi was returning from the City Courts to his residence in Block 18 of Federal B Area.
A police official said Kazmi used the same route to return home and had stopped at a shop to buy fruit when he was attacked.
A senior official of the East zone said the killing appeared to be sectarian in nature.
Kazmi’s body was taken to Jinnah hospital for an autopsy and then handed over to his family.
Separately, some men attacked a Shia family travelling in a car on Liaquatabad Flyover near the Karimabad Furniture Market, killing a woman and injuring her husband and son.
Police said 40-year-old Huma, her husband Bilal Ahmed and teenage son Hasnain, residents of Nazimabad No 2, were returning home after visiting their relatives in Gulshan-e-Maymar when the assailants fired gunshots at their vehicle.
The police believe that the attack was motivated by sectarianism and the actual target was the husband.
Nisar asked to take action
Condemning the two attacks, the Shia Ulema Council demanded that the interior minister should visit Karachi and directly take steps to bring Shia killings in the city to a stop.
“Police and other law enforcement agencies have completely failed to protect the lives of members of the community,” Shia Ulema Council President Jaffer Subhani said at a press conference held at the Karachi Press Club.
“The Sindh government has no right to rule as it had miserably failed to protect the citizens of Karachi. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar must take steps directly,” he added.
Subhani said the governor, the chief minister and IGP had assured Shia ulema that target killings in Karachi would be curbed but no results were visible so far.
Subhani said he did not support using the army restore law and order in Karachi and police could do it on their own if some improvements were introduced in the department.
“There is lack of coordination between police and Rangers. They are not working on a single agenda,” he added.
Lawyers to boycott courts
The city’s legal fraternity has announced that lawyers would boycott courts on Thursday (today) in protest against the killing of Kazmi.
The Karachi Bar Association, the Malir Bar Association and the Sindh High Court Bar Association have pointed out that Kazmi was the third lawyer murdered in Karachi this year.
Since the year 2000, 43 lawyers have been killed the city.
The Karachi Bar Association, the Malir Bar Association had also observed two strikes earlier this month, on July 10 and July 5, against the alleged victimisation of a colleague and a judge.
Former Malir Bar Association president Ashraf Sammon demanded that the government should take stern action against the killers.
He said the lawyers understood that boycotting courts created problems for citizens; especially for under-trial prisoners and other litigants, but
there was no other option to show resistance against target killings.
Another senior lawyer, Advocate Shakil Ahmed, said the killings would not stop until the culprits were awarded the death penalty.
Special public prosecutor Abdul Maroof said the instead of observing strikes, lawyers should find some other way to register their protests.
MQM condemns
The chief of Muttahida Qaumi Movement Altaf Hussain has strongly condemned the brutal killing of Mubarak Raza Kazmi, the son-in-law of prominent religious scholar and preacher Jauhari.
In a statement issued from the London secretariat, the MQM chief said continuous attacks on members a specific sect created doubts over the efficacy of the ongoing targeted operation in the city
He described the killing of Kazmi as the continuation of the sectarian killings of doctors, professors and other professionals of a specific sect.
Hussain said terrorists kept targeting the members of Shia community one by one while the federal and provincial governments left the city on the mercy of these extremists and terrorists.