KARACHI: A local leader of Maulana Fazal-ur-Rahman’s Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan (JUI-F) was critically wounded in an armed attack near his home in the Pak Colony area on Thursday in what investigators said appeared to be a “targeted attack”.

Officials said that Maulana Gul Rafiq, in his mid-50s was attacked near his home in Haroonabad by gunmen riding a motorbike. Hit by multiple bullets, he fell unconscious. Area people, later, moved him to the Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi, where he was admitted for treatment.

“As some witnesses said, two men on a motorbike, both wearing helmets, targeted Maualan Rafiq at a place known as KMC School,” said an official at the Pak Colony police station. “He was shot in the head at a very close range. It emerges as a targeted attack. His condition is still critical and doctors are trying their best to save his life.”

The attack attracted strong reaction from the JUI-F leadership. The party’s Karachi chief Qari Muhammad Usman with his workers reached the Civil Hospital. In a statement he demanded early arrest of the attackers and warned that if those “terrorists” were not arrested, it would encourage them to repeat such acts. He said wounded Maulana Rafiq was chief of PS-114 of the party’s organisational structure.

“The terrorist element wants to sabotage harmony and unity in the holy month when the nation is facing the coronavirus challenges,” he said. “It’s now the government’s responsibility to prove its writ. The clerics and prayer leaders are the ones who preach harmony and tolerance and those who are targeting them are in fact enemy of the state.”

Published in Dawn, May 15th, 2020