Two guards killed in attack on prominent cleric Taqi Usmani
karachi — A prominent cleric survived an assassination bid by motorcycle-borne gunmen on Friday that killed two guards and critically injured another cleric in Karachi, police said.
The attack on the Nipa fly-over in the Gulshan-e-Iqbal area came as the cleric and former Sharia judge, Mufti Taqi Usmani, was heading to religious seminary Dar-ul-Uloom, Korangi, to lead Friday prayers.
“Allah has been gracious, he is safe,” the city’s police chief, Amir Shaikh, said, calling the attack a conspiracy to sabotage peace in Karachi and the country.
Usmani and his fellow cleric, Maulana Amir Shahab, were travelling in two cars, when at least four attackers riding on two motorcycles opened fire and fled, police said.
“They used multiple handguns,” Raja Umar Khattab, a police officer of the Counter Terrorism Department of Sindh province, said.
The attackers had followed the cleric’s car for some distance and carried out surveillance of his route, he added.
“Maulana Amir Shahab is in critical condition with gunshot wounds to the head,” Dr Seemen Jamali of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, said, adding that another person had been brought in dead.
The car in which Usmani was travelling went to another hospital, where his guard was declared dead on arrival, police said.
A bystander also sustained injuries in the attack, a police officer said, adding that bullet shells of 9mm pistol have been collected from the crime scene, whereas CCTV footage and other evidence were being examined.
Crime in Karachi, from targeted killings to extortion, has fallen sharply since a campaign to rein it in began in 2013, led by paramilitary Rangers.
As a judge on the Shariat appellate bench of the Supreme Court from 1982 to 2002, Usmani specialised in Islamic jurisprudence and financial matters. — Reuters, APP