KARACHI: While not ruling out extremism as a motive, the police authorities on Wednesday hinted at narrowing down the scope of investigation into last month’s murder of Ali Raza Abidi, former MNA and leader of a faction of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, when they claimed to have found leads suggesting that the party’s London- and South Africa-based members were in the city to execute the job.

Talking to reporters after seeing former Sindh Governor Mohammad Zubair at his residence in Defence Housing Authority, SSP South Pir Mohammed Shah said that the probe into Mr Abidi’s killing had made some headway and the investigators were close to knowing the motive and people behind his assassination.

“We are gradually moving forward in that [Abidi’s killing] case,” he said. “We are excluding people and groups who cannot be suspected of their involvement in the incident. But definitely there are credible reports that people of the London group, or you can say the South African group, are here in the city. Every government agency is doing its job and adding its inputs. Considering the history of violence in Karachi, we cannot rule out extremism and terrorism as a possible motive, but there are other actors as well who are taken into account.”

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2019