Murad murder FIR controversy deepens

By Hasan Mansoor

KARACHI: The Pakistan People’s Party is considering moving the courts to secure the registration of the FIR into the murder of Sindh Assembly member Abdullah Murad, party leaders said.

Mr Murad was killed on Saturday in an ambush near his house in Malir. His driver, Hanif, was also killed in the terrorist act.

The FIR into the murder had not yet been registered at the Al-Falah police station till Tuesday because the party leadership wanted to include a sentence holding the Muttahida Qaumi Movement responsible for the threats Mr Murad is said to have been receiving before the attack. PPP leaders said police are reluctant to register such a paragraph due to pressures from the top, because the MQM shares power as a member of the provincial coalition and has its man inside the Governor’s House.

“We do not want to make direct accusations against the MQM about the murder, but we want to get it on record at least that the MQM had been threatening Mr Murad of dire consequences before he was killed in the ambush,” PPP MPA from Lyari, Rafiq Engineer, told Daily Times. He said the party had finalised a panel of lawyers to move the court to secure the registration of an FIR to the satisfaction of the bereaved family and the party.

The party and the family are even not satisfied with the sketches of the two suspects the police prepared and issued to the press with the help of a cousin of Mr Murad who saw the murder from his car while on his way to office.

“The witness says the police has prepared the sketches of some persons whom he never mentioned in his account,” local PPP official Abdur Razzaq Raja said.

The police contradicted the reports that an FIR with the state as complainant had been registered without consent from the bereaved family. “No, we have not registered any such report so far,” an official at Al-Falah police station, said.

Meanwhile, when a party spokesman announced on Tuesday that the police released their 200 workers arrested on Monday during violent protests in the PPP stronghold, Lyari, there are indications that the police has planned to conduct raids on certain party leaders for their arrests.

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