MUZAFFARABAD: Senior police officials in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) are tight-lipped about their progress regarding identification of the persons who had shot dead a former cadre of the proscribed Jamaatud Dawa in a mosque on Friday.

Muhammad Riaz, also known as Abu Qasim Kashmiri, was shot four times when he was busy in supplications after Fajr prayers at Al Quds mosque in Rawalakot.

The killer and another man, believed to be his accomplice, had fled after committing the crime at about 4:55am.

A police source in Rawalakot told Dawn that it was an act of target killing and the perpetrator(s) were believed to have come from outside the region.

On Sunday, pictures of a young man went viral on social media with claims that he was the one who had shot and killed Mr Riaz, who belonged to the Surankote area of Indian-held Kashmir and had migrated to this side of the divide in 1998.

However, on being contacted, Shehryar Sikandar, the deputy inspector general (DIG) of police in Rawalakot, told Dawn that police were working on multiple lines and immediately he could not confirm or contradict the involvement or identification of any particular person, including the one whose pictures had gone viral on social media, in the interest of investigations.

“This is a sensitive case… Any information shared beforehand may go to the benefit of the suspects. Let us first accomplish our task,” the DIG said.

Mr Riaz was associated with the JuD till it was banned by the government in 2019. In 2020, when a new organisation by the name of Jammu Kashmir United Move­ment (JKUM) was launched in AJK, he joined it.

After migrating from Poonch in held Kashmir, where his father and brother were killed by the Indian army, Mr Riaz initially lived in a refugee camp in Kotli district.

Some two years ago, he moved into a rented accommodation along with his 10-member family in the town of Chakswari in Mirpur district.

A JKUM office-bearer in Rawalakot had also told Dawn on Friday that his second funeral prayers would be held in Chakswari, followed by his burial in the same town late in the night.

However, it turned out on Sunday that after the second funeral prayers in Chakswari at about 7pm, the coffin of Mr Riaz was transported to Markaz-i-Taiba, the headquarters of the proscribed JuD in Muridke [Punjab], where his third funeral prayers were offered at 8:15am on Saturday.

Afterwards, he was laid to rest in a graveyard on the premises of the 75-acre Markaz, a source in JKUM confirmed to Dawn.

According to media reports, the control of the Markaz has been taken over by the Punjab government.

Published in Dawn, September 11th, 2023