Attempts to fan sectarian strife in Pakistan is going on quite for some time. The latest example is the murder of Dr Adil Khan, Principal of Jamia Farooqia (Sunni), and his driver was chased and murdered. He was known for his efforts to uproot sectarian differences in Pakistan. He was working with Mufti Muneeb-ur-Rehman, a leading scholar of the Barelvi sect and chairman of the Central Moon Sighting Committee, on a plan to resolve the differences and had done a lot of work.
This assassination shows that those who work for national harmony and eradication of sectarianism in Pakistan are being targeted. Dr Adil was striving for national unity. Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai was also assassinated earlier for making a statement against the US. Maulana Yusuf Ludhianvi was assassinated while fighting for his country. Dozens of prominent Karachi clerics have been publicly assassinated over the past two decades, but intelligence agencies spying on politicians have failed to catch the killer of any of them.
It is not just a matter of Sunni or Ahl-e-Sunnat ulema, but at a time, when the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) was working for the unity of the Ummah in the country, its key member, Shiite leader Allama Hassan al-Turabi, was assassinated a few days after Mufti Shamzai’s assassination. Today, again the same 9mm pistol has been used, which has been used in the killing of 80 Shia and Sunni people and sometimes both Shia and Sunni clerics have been killed with the same pistol. If the government does not catch the killers of the ulema, then those who spread sectarianism and unrest will be encouraged to carry out further attacks. The government must arrest the killers of Dr Adil Khan. It can also trace the perpetrators of previous assassinations.