KARACHI, March 1: Police earned the ire and appreciation of the Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen and the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat, respectively, when they claimed on Friday to have arrested four suspects associated with a political party and also involved in targeted killings carried out on sectarian grounds.

The police said that they arrested four men — Syed Naeem Haider Najafi, Syed Hussain Ahmed Jafri, Rais Jafri and Syed Azhar Hussain Rizvi — in the Gulbahar and Rizvia areas and seized pistols and a rifle from them.

Speaking at a press conference, DIG-West Javed Odho claimed that the held suspects were allegedly involved in 31 murders, including those of ASWJ workers.

He said that the suspects had been associated with a political party, for which they had also killed several people, but now they were affiliated with a sectarian outfit and killing their rivals.

However, he did not name the political party to which they belonged.

The DIG said that suspect Najafi confessed to his involvement in 11 murders, suspect Rizvi to 15 murders, suspect Jafri to four killings and suspect Rais Jafri to having killed one person.

MWM demands DIG’s dismissal

After the announcement of the arrests, the MWM’s Karachi chapter held a press conference at the Karachi Press Club and demanded immediate dismissal of DIG Odho for ‘implicating innocent Shia men in the killings’.

MWM leader Asghar Abbas Zaidi warned that his party would launch countrywide protests if the innocent Shia youths were not released.

Accompanied by Maulana Mohammad Hussain Karimi, Maulana Ali Anwar Jafri and Mohammad Hussain Jafri, Mr Zaidi said that Rangers had taken 19 youths into their ‘illegal’ custody on the morning of Feb 25 from their houses without any warrant in Gulbahar’s Jafria Colony.

He said that 15 of them had been released, while the remaining four men were handed over to the DIG-West, who levelled baseless allegations against them in his press conference.

Referring to the press conference of the police, Mr Zaidi said that the DIG-West claimed that the held persons had previously belonged to a political party and they recently quit it and joined a Shia party.Terming the DIG a biased officer, the MWM leader said that he did not name the political party but had no qualms about naming the Shia party in an attempt to bring the latter into disrepute.

ASWJ praises arrests

Appreciating the press conference of the DIG-West, a spokesman for the ASWJ said that his party wanted a free and transparent trial of the held suspects.

“Today’s press conference of the DIG west to show arrest of four suspected killers should be appreciated,” he told Dawn. “We have credible information that law-enforcement agencies picked up some 20 suspects mainly in the Nazimabad, Gulbahar and Rizvia areas and they should not be released under any pressure.”

Referring to the Gulbahar and Rizvia areas, where he said his party had lost more than a dozen workers in recent weeks, the spokesman claimed that ASWJ leaders had informed authorities in their meetings about the presence of terrorists in the two localities.

He said that the police had time and again claimed the arrests of a number of members of banned parties, but this trend was never witnessed when it came to the arrest of the killers of ASWJ clerics and activists. “The law-enforcement agencies should not set them free on personal guarantees or under any pressure and the held suspects must face transparent trial.”