WASHINGTON, July 21: The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has decided to probe the murder of two Pakistanis near Washington last week as a hate crime, officials said on Monday.

The FBI Maryland office called a Washington-based Muslim advocacy group, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, to inform that it has taken over the case.

Last week, the council had urged the FBI to take over the investigation from the Maryland police who were investigating the murders as street robbery.

Sair Saeed Butt, 26, and Hammad Chaudhry, 23, both from Lahore, were shot outside Mr Butt’s apartment in Prince George’s Country, Maryland, last Monday.

P.G. County’s homicide detective Kerry Jernigan told Dawn that police were treating the murders as street robbery.

“Apparently, some local, young black males seized an opportunity to rob somebody ... and the worst happened,” he said, adding that police had already identified all five suspects and were going to arrest them soon.

But when contacted on Monday, a week after the murders, police said so far they had a warrant for one suspect only. They said they were unable to arrest him because they did not know where he was.

Meanwhile, the FBI called the CAIR office in Bethesda, Maryland, and informed them that they “are pursuing this investigation as a hate crime until it is ruled out that it is not a hate crime,” said a CAIR representative Seyed Rizwan Mowlana.

“The FBI decided to treat this as a hate crime because so far they have found no indication of robbery,” Mowlana said.

“The FBI acknowledged that the killers made no attempt to take the brand new car that Mr Chaudhry was driving, although the keys were inside. They did not steal anything. They made no attempt to rob anyone,” he added.