SUKKUR/LARKANA: The Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazal (JUI-F) has launched a workers mobilisation campaign and also started making arrangements for a siege to the Chief Minister House in Karachi on Aug 31 for justice in Dr Khalid Mehmood Soomro’s assassination case.

Dr Soomro, who was the Sindh secretary general of the party, was shot dead while he was saying the Fajr prayers at a mosque adjacent to his seminary in the SITE area of Sukkur on Nov 29, 2014. The provincial government and investigating agencies claim that they have proofs and evidence against those involved in the killing and also arrested some of them but the progress of investigation and trial has remained very slow, according to the party leadership.

JUI-F acting secretary general Maulana Mohammed Amjad Khan on Monday visited Larkana and then proceeded to Sukkur to review the strategy for the campaign. He, along with the party’s Sindh secretary general Maulana Rashid Mehmood Soomro, was the chief guest at a meeting chaired by Maulana Nasir Mehmood Soomro, the party’s Larkana city chief, and attended by several hundred workers and supporters at the Jamia Islamia Isha’atul Quran wal Hadees in Larkana.

The meeting expressed its concern over the slow pace of the trial despite a number of protest rallies and demonstrations held in different parts of the province for speedy justice. The party’s district leadership announced its decision to lay a siege to the CM House in Karachi on Aug 31 to press the government accelerate the pace of trial in order to take it to a logical end without any further delay.

It was also announced that caravans of JUI-F leaders, activists and supporters would travel to Karachi from various cities and towns of the interior of Sindh to take part in the siege.

The JUI-F leaders condemned the government for not recommending the assassination case to a military court, as was repeatedly demanded by the party.

They said that the party chief, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, was also expected to visit Larkana and Sukkur on Aug 23 to mobilise activists and supporters.

Maulana Nasir told the meeting that the country was destined to become an Islamic welfare state. “We will continue our fight for the country’s integrity and solidarity,” he said, adding that Pakistan’s enemies would never succeed in their designs to weaken the state.

SUKKUR: Speaking at a meeting of workers at the residence of a senior party colleague, Agha Said Mohammed Ayub, in Sukkur on Tuesday, Maulana Amjad Khan and Maulana Rashid Soomro said that the party leadership did realise that a great deal of unrest prevailed among leaders, workers and supporters over the inordinate delay in unishing Dr Soomro’s killers.

Holding the provincial government responsible for it, they said that the then chief minister and his cabinet members never implemented the terms agreed upon between the two sides to ensure a speedy trial of the arrested suspects. They said that the government had also later agreed to refer the case to a military court but did not proceed with the legal formalities.

“If the government did not keep its words by Aug 30, hundreds of our workers will lay a siege to the CM House the next day,” they warned.

Other JUI-F leaders including Mufti Saud Afzal Halejvi, Maulana Abdul Haq Mahar and Aamir Qureshi also attended the meeting.

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2016