My tribute to my shaheed Quaid Saleem Qadri. We have not forgotton you my dear Quaid and we will never forget your killer (SIPAH-E-SAHABA).
Cover Story
The War Within?
*Intra-Sunni conflict adds yet another dimension to Karachi’s war with itself. *
By Massoud Ansari
Tension gripped Karachi and life in the city came to a grinding halt on Friday, May 18,when stick-wielding, turban-clad students from various seminaries took to the streets to demonstrate their muscle power. The protest came in the wake of the assassination of Maulana Saleem Qadri, chief of the rapidly growing fundamentalist organisation, the Sunni Tehreek.
Qadri, a high-profile Muslim cleric of the Barelvi school, was ambushed, apparently by a team of six well-trained assassins riding three motorbikes while he was on his way to Noorani Masjid in Rasheedabad no 7 for the Friday congregation. According to eyewitnesses, when the Maulana’s double cabin van slowed down due to a speed-breaker, the assailants sprayed it with bullets from three sides – right, left and front. Says an eyewitness, “They fired for at least seven to 10 minutes, after which they fled. No one had time to retaliate.”
Qadri and five others were killed on the spot, and three others, including his six-year-old son Bilal Raza, and eight-year-old nephew, Ahmed Raza, were wounded. The dead include Anis Qadri, 23, Mohammed Altaf Junejo, 40 (Qadri’s nephew and brother-in-law), Ibrahim Qadri, 30, van driver Abid Baloch, 30, and police constable, Hafeez Qadri.
Mysteriously, the corpse of one of the alleged killers, who was later identified as “Arshad alias Polka, an activist of the Sipha-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP)”, was also found in the vicinity of the Qadri killing soon afterwards.
