Dr Imran Farooq — File photo

ISLAMABAD: A key character in the murder of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader Dr Imran Farooq has been arrested is Karachi, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan disclosed here on Monday.

The man taken into custody by intelligence and security agencies was responsible for arranging visas, tickets and stay in Britain of two suspected killers of Dr Farooq.

The minister said the suspect would be presented in court on Tuesday and a joint investigation team (JIT) would be formed at the request of the Sindh government.

Chaudhry Nisar said the murder case had become a test not only for Britain, but also for Pakistan. He said rumours of various sorts had been doing the rounds, but made it clear that the purpose was not political. He said a Pakistani had been killed and the case would be taken to its logical conclusion. He said those who took somebody’s life would be brought to book.

The minister said Britain and Pakistan had shared a lot of information on the matter.

Referring to the two suspected killers believed to have been in the custody of an intelligence agency for years, he said they had had gone to the United Kingdom for the first time and the central character arrested now had played a key role in facilitating them and paid thousands of pounds to them as their fees.

Although the minister stopped short of divulging the name of the person arrested in Karachi, sources said he was a Karachi-based businessman named Moazzam Ali Khan.

Dr Farooq was murdered outside his home in London in 2010. The two suspected killers -- Mohsin Ali Syed and Kashif Khan Kamran -- had got British visas on the basis of admission to the London Academy of Management Sciences in East London.

Mohsin Ali had arrived in the UK in February 2010 and moved between a number of addresses in London. Kashif Khan reached the UK in early September 2010. According to the information shared by the UK, phone record showed that they used to move together and were in contact with a close relative of the head of a political party in the United Kingdom.

Both left the UK on Sept 16, 2010, hours after the murder and flew to Sri Lanka before travelling to Karachi on Sept 19. They were allegedly picked up by security officials before coming out of the Karachi airport.

The sources said the UK investigation authorities had been given access to the two men who were likely to spill the beans now.

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2015

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