8 April 2005	Friday	28 Safar 1426

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LAHORE, April 7: Police are ‘very close’ to arresting the killers of religious scholar Ghulam Husain Najfi, Law Minister Raja Basharat told the Punjab Assembly on Thursday. Responding to a call attention notice by two opposition members, Malik Asghar Ali and Javed Akbar Dhiloon, the minister said the vendor who had placed his cart in front of the Maulana’s car and stopped it, had been arrested.

“He has given addresses and names of others involved in the heinous crime,” he said.

The government agencies were very close to arresting the murderers, he claimed, but added that more details could not be divulged right now.

He, however, claimed that Maulana Najfi did not receive any (murder) threats, or at least he did not inform police if there was any.

This provoked Ehsanullah Waqas into claiming that the minister was either ignorant of the facts or telling a lie. The slain leader remained confined to his institution for more than three years because of threats, he claimed.

Meanwhile, the opposition also contested another claim by the minister that the police had traced almost all high-profile cases in the recent past. However, it was convinced when the minister assured them of early arrest of killers.

The law minister also claimed that complainants tend to mislead the police by including names of political and religious rivals in the FIR. Had the police been following the lead given by the complainant of the Maulana’s killing, they would have been groping in the dark, he said.

The police, he said, expanded scope of their investigation and were getting closer to the culprits.

Another call attention notice by Mr Waqas regarding the murder of a teacher in Raiwind by some students also came under discussion. The teacher was killed after his refusal to grant pass marks to some of the student.

Mr Basharat claimed that investigation would soon be expanded to the secrecy branch of the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education because of a possibility of connivance of its staff.

The teacher had around 299 papers and addresses of all those people had been taken from the board to include them in investigation. All the candidates would be paraded before the slain’s wife so that the killers did not escape punishment, the minister said.