ISLAMABAD, May 10: The Sabzi Mandi police claimed to have resolved the mystery surrounding the killing of a local official of the Saudi embassy on March 17 and arrested two persons.

Dr Hafiz Abdul Rasheed Azhar, a religious scholar, was killed during robbery by the two men who used to get financial help from him, said the police on Thursday.

Dr Azhar was director of Saudi embassy’s religious office - Maktab-i-Dawa - and also monitored the distribution of funds, provided by the Saudi government, among religious seminaries and educational institutes.

The alleged killers, who had studied in a religious seminary at Rawalpindi Saddar, had come to rob Dr Azhar as they thought he was keeping the funds at his house. According to the investigation, both the alleged killers lived blow the poverty line and at times got only a cup of tea with biscuits for a whole day. One of the killers, who had known the victim for four years, needed Rs10,000 to pay the loan which he had taken from someone for the marriage of his sister.

He shared his financial problems with his friend and the two hatched the plan to loot Dr Azhar.

“When the bandits came to the house of Dr Azhar at Sector 1-10/1, they had no intention to kill their host. However, after taking the food served by Dr Azhar, when one of the bandits held him from the neck the grip was so strong that he died,” said the police.

Later, they took the victim’s ATM card and the cash amounting to a few thousand rupees and escaped in his Vitz.

The police said one of the killers had first met Dr Azhar four years back when he gave him a lift at Kashmir Highway during a rainy night. Later, the accused used to visit him regularly and on every visit got financial help of Rs200 to Rs500 from Dr Azhar.