ISLAMABAD: Leaders of the banned Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) have urged the government to expose people involved in the murder of Maulana Samiul Haq.

Addressing a press conference here on Monday, ASWJ leaders Allama Ahmed Ludhianvi, Maulana Aurangzeb Farooqui and Maulana Muawia Azam — who is an independent member of the Punjab Assembly — paid tribute to Maulana Sami for his services for Islam and said he had made great contribution to spreading a network of madressahs (religious seminaries) in the country.

They said these madressahs had produced a large number of Afghan fighters, including many senior leaders of Taliban.

Maulana Haq, who was chief of his own faction of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI), was stabbed to death at his house in Rawalpindi on Friday.

Both the ASWJ and the JUI-Sami are components of the Difa-i-Pakistan Council (DPC) — a conglomerate of dozens of religious and political parties.

Mr Ludhianvi said those who killed Maulana Sami and those who planned the murder must be exposed even if they were members of his own party.

He said Maulana Sami was like a father figure to him and his party.

He warned that if the government failed to expose the people behind the JUI-S chief’s murder, his party in consultation with other parties in the DPC would announce its course of action.

Mr Ludhianvi said that it could not be ruled out that people who were close to Maulana Sami might have been involved in his murder. But, he added, whoever was involved in the murder must be exposed and brought to justice.

“We do not rule out any such possibility — but again it is the responsibility of the authorities to expose the killer,” he said, adding: “A couple of years ago a large number of our workers were targeted and the authorities told us that it was an internal job.”

Mr Ludhianvi criticised the Supreme Court’s decision of acquitting Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman, in a blasphemy case.

Published in Dawn, November 6th, 2018