KARACHI, Feb 26: Three members of a militant organisation have been arrested by police for shooting deaths in the office of Idara Amn-o-Insaf, a Christian charity, in 2002.

On Sept 25, seven Christians were shot dead and another was seriously wounded in the NGO’s Rimpa Plaza office. Six of them had died on the spot. The two wounded were taken to the Civil Hospital, where one of them died later.

The dead were identified as: Iqbal Allah Rakha, 40, driver; Benjamin Sadiq, 26, driver; Kamran Anjum, 25, computer operator; Jan Muneer, 30, office assistant; Aslam Martin, 45, communication coordinator; Mushtaq Roshan, 51, accountant; and Edwin Foster, 20. Robin Sharif, the assistant communication coordinator, was seriously wounded.

Over the years the killing was treated a result of in-fighting of the local Christian community over the possession of real estate. This view was supported by certain police officers.

Acting on the basis of information extracted during the interrogation of the 10 suspects of the ‘Tehreek-i-Islami and Lashkar-i-Muhammadi’ recently arrested by police, the CID arrested the three alleged militants in Akhtar Colony.

The three suspects were identified as Zubairuddin alias Sharjeel, Asif alias Pasha and Mohammad Atif. Police seized three pistols and a stolen motorcycle from the suspects, residents of Landhi and Korangi.

The four-strong group inspired by the Afghan Jihad and having lost links with the proscribed outfits carried out their biggest terrorist act on Sept 25, 2002 by killing seven staffers of Idara Amn-o-Insaf.

“They had gone to the Idara office to kill two or three persons, but ended up killing seven. Initially they had planned to kill their targets by administering lethal injections, but they ran out of the injections and Wajahat used his silencer-fitted pistol,” CID SP (Operations) Raja Umar Khattab told Dawn.

In 2003, an ASI posted in Korangi picked up Zubairuddin on suspicion about his background but later set him free after taking Rs5,000 in bribe.

The Idara Amn-o-Insaf killings created bad blood within the group as some members criticized Wajahat for misleading the others, saying that two or three persons were the target, but they had to kill seven, SP Khattab said.

Associated with the furniture-making trade, and having lost one of his brothers in the Afghan Jihad in 1990 and another during a bomb-making effort in 1998 in Korangi, Zubairuddin went to Afghanistan to visit his brother’s grave and also joined Jihad there.

After returning to the city he made friends with Wajahat alias Gulfam and took part in different terrorist activities. Initially he was associated with Harkatul Ansar.

Asif alias Pasha is a brother-in-law and cousin of Wajahat. Asif used to hang out with Wajahat and took part in almost all terrorist acts of the group. Asif was a mechanic in a textile factory.

Mohammad Atif, a matriculate, was originally associated with the dairy business. In 1993, he became religiously inclined and later joined Maulana Masood Azhar’s Jaish-i-Muhammad with some friends.

In 2000, Wajahat, who is still absconding, preached to his associates against such persons, NGOs and Jewish organizations that, according to him, were working to damage Islam.

They started out by killing Aven Adven on May 22, 2002 by administering a lethal injection to him at his spare-parts shop near Tibet Centre and made it look like a robbery attempt.

On June 20, 2002, they went to the office of the Taro International situated in the DHA, trussed up all people inside the office and killed its owner Malik Tariq Allahwalla with a lethal injection. The late Tariq was a former office-bearer of the Rotary Club.

Besides, their victims killed between 2002 and 2007 in various localities included Dr Mehboob Ali and Malik Hoshiar Ali, Liaquat Husain, Dara Feroz Mirza, a lecturer at Theosophical Society, and Dr Hameedullah, who belonged to the Ahmadi community.

For a brief period suspect Wajahat stopped his operations and started business in Dubai and Nepal. Meanwhile he came in contact with Mohammad Hassan Aamir, who had gone to the UK for education but later returned. Hassan provided funding to Wajahat and he carried out the killings of Liaquat Husain, Dara Feroz Mirza and Dr Hameedullah.