PESHAWAR: A relative of Hizb-i-Islami chief Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Afghan warlord who recently signed a peace deal with the government in Kabul, was gunned down on the outskirts of the provincial capital on Tuesday.

Police identified the slain man as Naqeeb Mohammad, a resident of Najeeb Colony, in the Taj Abad area.

They said the attack took place at around 4am when Mohammad was coming out of a mosque after offering morning prayers. Armed motorcyclists were waiting for him outside the mosque and opened fire as soon as he came out, they said, adding that the attackers managed to escape.

“Apparently, it is an incident of targeted killing,” a police official said.

Alam Zeb, a witness to the attack, told reporters that he saw motorcyclists waiting for Mohammad outside the mosque and they shot him when he came out.

Mohammad, alias Ustad Fareed, was the father-in-law of the Afghan warlord Hekmatyar’s son Salah­uddin. Like his party chief, he was from Kunduz.

Published in Dawn, May 31st, 2017