ISLAMABAD, June 7: Police on Thursday claimed to have arrested two persons, including the man who had masterminded the murder of Syed Hammad Amjad Raza, additional registrar of the Supreme Court and personal assistant to Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

A senior police official investigating the case said they were close to unravelling the motive of the murder.

“Two brothers arrested by police from Muzaffarabad were members of a gang of hired assassins who had come to Hammad’s house along with Bashiruddin and Sharifuddin,” Deputy Inspector-General of Police Shahid Nadeem Baloch told Dawn.

He said the brothers, Mohammad Mumtaz (mastermind) and Mushtaq Hussain, had been brought to Islamabad after being produced in the court of a civil judge who remanded them in police custody.

Police said that of the six people involved in the murder, four had been arrested.

Two of them have been sent to the Adiala jail and the other two are being interrogated by police.

Police said Bashiruddin and Sharifuddin had entered Hammad’s room and their accomplices Basharat Mir and Mir Afzal remained in their vehicle outside the house. The DIG said: “At present it seems a crime story, but the motive behind the murder is yet to be known because the accused arrested by the police are still to be identified by the victim’s family, especially by Hammad’s father who had seen the accused but he is still in a state of shock.”