KARACHI, Jan 25: As the city remained on edge after recent killings apparently on sectarian grounds, police authorities on Wednesday sought support from both civil and security administration, including intelligence agencies, to devise a ‘decisive strategy’ against the banned outfits that were usually accused of ‘tit-for-tat assassinations’, officials said.

A top official, who came up with a two-pronged strategy to end what he described as tit-for-tat sectarian killings, warned of more such incidents if the move was not pursued for a swift and effective solution.

“I have personally proposed to the governor, chief minister, home minister, chief secretary, Sindh IG and other people concerned to sit on Thursday with intelligence agencies on board,” said Additional IG Karachi Akhtar Hussain Gorchani while speaking to Dawn.

“At the same time we need to engage leaders from both schools of thought. They must be convinced that there is no way forward in settling scores and it would only damage city peace with no gain for any side,” he said.

However, he was cautious while blaming sectarian groups for the killing of four lawyers within two weeks and said that other angles must also be thoroughly investigated.

“One can’t rule out a third party’s role,” said Mr Gorchani.

“In such situations there are always some anti-state elements that exploit the existing rivalries and achieve their targets by killing people on both sides, sparking violence and sowing fear on sectarian grounds.”

However, what leaders from the two sides claimed was at variance with the ‘third party violence’ theory.

They blamed ‘rival groups’ for the killing of people belonging to the respective sects and even named suspects allegedly involved in the killings.

“Only today, we lodged an FIR with the Risala police station against Tuesday killings of our two workers that included names of people behind the incident,” said a spokesman for the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat. “If someone thinks that they are tit-for-tat killings, they must count the number of victims from both sides. On an average we are losing one activist a month. Even our lawyer has not been spared who was merely offering his professional services.”

Though the city police chief said unidentified persons were booked in sectarian killings, the representatives of both sides rejected the claim saying that they had always nominated suspects in the FIRs and identified their association behind the targeted killings.

“It’s a baseless claim,” said a spokesman for the Majlis-i-Wahdat-i-Muslimeen. “We had to stage hours-long protest outside the Governor’s House just to nominate the suspects in the killing of Askari Raza last month as the authorities were not ready to book the suspects.

“The fact is that members of banned outfits are free, with no checks on them, and the authorities hold talks with them instead of taking action against them following targeted attacks.”

“We have set up two separate investigation teams,” said Mr Gorchani.

“Each team will take up the cases of victims from each side or sect separately. The move is aimed at focusing on killing trends in each sect that may help tracing culprits and their associations.”