PESHAWAR, Sept 22: Police are still clueless about the murder of Maulana Hassan Jan, who was killed on Sept 16.

“Six days have passed since the murder but we have no idea who killed him,” said a senior police official.

He said that they were working on a few angles in a bid to trace out Maulana Jan’s killers, a JUI-F leader and vice-president of the Wafaqul Madaris.

Police said that they could not rule out the sectarian aspect in the former MNA’s killing because “several people have fallen prey to sectarian killings over the past few months.”

The late Maulana’s often dubbed suicide bombings as un-Islamic in his Friday’s sermons, attracting huge crowds, he said. “But his remarks about suicide attacks were not harsh.”

“Police have not been able to establish any link in its attempt to reach the real killers. It is so preoccupied with investigating so many high-profile cases,” the official said.

According to him, investigators were also looking into the funds of the seminary patronised by late Hasan Jan. “Funding to the Jamia Imdadul Uloom is an important issue in the investigation,” he added.

“For the past three months, the seminary’s funds were being looked after by a committee.

We are also trying to ascertain who controlled the funds before the formation of the committee,” he said.

Quoting the slain cleric’s relatives, the official said that the late Maulana maintained a diary in which he kept a record of people with whom he went out. “But the dairy is blank about that particular evening,” he added.

The official said that they were also trying to persuade Maulana’s sons to tell the name of the man with whom the Maulana had gone.

He said that the police could not believe that a man of his (Hassan Jan) calibre would go out with some stranger.

His followers say that Maulana was a simple man and accepted invitations from anyone who approached him.

The police official said that they were also trying to find out where the late Maulana had been in the last 40 minutes.

Maulana Hassan Jan, he said, had gone out at 6:05pm on Sept 16 along with the alleged assassins.

He was killed at 6:45pm in the Sharifabad area, which is about 10-15 minutes away from his home.

He said that the police had held detailed meetings with the sons of the late Maulana a few days ago and would try to contact them again.