KARACHI, 10 October 2004 — Unidentified gunmen shot dead a prominent pro-Taleban Sunni cleric in this southern port city late yesterday, police said.
Mufti Jamil, head of a large Islamic seminary in Karachi, was attacked on his way to a mosque, Karachi police chief Fayyaz Leghari said. He died later in hospital.
Police said another cleric accompanying him was also killed in the ambush, which followed Thursday’s car bomb attack in Pakistan’s central Punjab province which left 41 Sunnis dead.
Leghari said at least three assailants riding two motorbikes opened fire on Jamil’s car in Baluch Para in the eastern part of the city.
“Their car was stopped by the assailants who then opened fire, killing Nazir Taunsvi on the spot and critically injuring Jamil,” Leghari said.
In May a top religious leader, Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, who was in charge of the same Binouri Town seminary, was gunned down by unknown assailants in Karachi, triggering rioting.
He said police and paramilitary rangers had cordoned off the area.
Jamil was among a group of Pakistani clerics and intelligence officials who went to Afghanistan in late 2001 in a failed attempt to convince Omar to hand over Al-Qaeda terror network chief Osama Bin Laden to the United States.
Meanwhile, more than 100 people linked to outlawed militant groups were rounded up in a new crackdown, police sources said yesterday.
“The swoop is focused at the moment in Punjab province and is aimed at shaking up the clandestine network of the banned militant sectarian groups,” a senior police official told AFP.
Pakistani security forces have been placed on high alert across the country as the two attacks blamed on religious extremists spurred fears of outbreak of sectarian unrest.
“More than 100 activists from outlawed Sunni and Shiite groups have been taken into custody from different cities of the province to cripple their support network,” the official who could not be identified said.
