Four suspects held in Zain Ali Effendi killing case

Police detained four men on Thursday for their suspected involvement in the killing of Zain Ali Effendi, grandson of Sindh Madressatul Islam founder Hassan Ali Effendi.

Investigators said the suspects, all of Afghan origin, were taken into custody during raids in various parts of the city. The four were said to have been involved in burglaries in the past. The police will get their fingerprints verified from the fingerprints obtained from the house of Effendi, son of Zulfiqar Effendi.

Fifty-year-old Effendi was killed while resisting a robbery in Karachi on January 6. The late-night tragic incident took place at Effendi’s house, located near Peoples Chowrangi, close to the Quaid-e-Azam’s mausoleum within the jurisdiction of the Jamshed Quarters Police Station, where a group of robbers barged into the house and killed Effendi when he resisted their robbery bid. According to police, the robbers escaped along with the looted valuables.

Police investigators have obtained a ballistics cross-matching report of the weapon used in the killing of Zain Ali Effendi, son of son of Zulfiqar Effendi, at his residence a couple of days ago. According to the forensic report, the weapon has no record of having been used in any crime in the past.

A special team has been formed by Additional IGP Karachi Ghulam Nabi Memon to ascertain whether Effendi was killed for offering resistance to a mugging bid or it was a targeted killing. The victim was a grandson of Hassan Ali Effendi, the illustrious academician who spearheaded the cause of education among the Muslims of Sindh and founded the Sindh Madressatul Islam School in 1885 during the British Raj.

Pakistan’s founder Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah also studied in the school for sometime before proceeding to London. The prestigious school that later evolved into a college and is now a university served several generations of Muslims of Sindh, particularly at a time when modern academic learning was not available to them.