In less than two weeks, the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of the Sindh police, in collaboration with the Karachi police solved the high-profile target killing case of an official of the Sindh Bar Council, Irfan Mahar, in Karachi.
The police have arrested two close relatives of Mahar for their alleged involvement in murdering the bar council official in broad daylight in the city’s densely populated Gulistan-e-Jauhar locality.
Their arrests were disclosed during a press conference held by CTD DIG Syed Khurram Ali on Sunday. Acting Additional IG Karachi Ghulam Nabi Memon and other CTD officials including senior counter-terrorism officer Raja Umer Khattab also accompanied him.
The CTD informed the media that the murder was carried out apparently over a ‘family dispute’ as the arrested suspects had revealed that Mahar’s wife, Sahibzadi, and one of her sisters were the masterminds of the killing and one of the arrested suspects, Ghulam Ali Akbar, was their brother.
The other arrested man has been identified as Rahim Buksh is the husband of the victim’s sister-in-law, namely Shabana. The CTD maintained that Mahar was not killed during a mugging bid or for professional reasons.
“Irfan Mahar’s wife and sister-in-law ordered the suspects to kill him,” claimed the CTD chief as he quoted the suspect’s confessions.
He added that the suspects had claimed that Irfan treated his wife rudely and she was fed up with him.
Sharing more confessions of the arrested men, the CTD said that Akbar had to pay back Rs3 million to Rs4 million to his borrowers.
“Initially, Sahibzadi paid Rs160,000 to her brother [Akbar] to carry out the target killing and then she paid Rs60,000 more to him,” the CTD said. The press conference was told that Akbar bought a new Honda motorcycle with Rs150,000 and also arranged a pistol.
The suspect then involved his younger sister Shabana’s husband, Buksh, in the murder plan, and then contacted his friend, Wajid Jhakro, to be part of the plot and paid him Rs40,000.
Akbar himself conducted recce of the victim a few days before the target killing and bought a trouser and a jacket from Saddar one day before the incident.
He later bought two black helmets and stayed at a hotel in the Cantonment Station area, the CTD maintained.
At the day of the incident, the suspects waited on a motorcycle for the victim in Gulistan-e-Jauhar. Sahibzadi informed Akbar through a mobile phone call that Mahar had left home with his son.
Jhakro was driving the motorcycle and Akbar riding pillion when they came near Mahar’s car after he had dropped his son to school. Akbar got off the motorcycle and gunned down the victim at point-blank range.
The suspects were arrested during a joint raid in the Gulistan-e-Jauhar area. The Sindh inspector general of police also announced a cash reward and certificates for the police team that solved the case.
