MUZAFFARABAD, May 15: A resident of Azad Jammu and Kashmir who fell victim to the May 12 carnage in Karachi was laid to rest in his ancestral village near here on Tuesday in a highly charged atmosphere.

Villagers blamed the government in Islamabad and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) for "unleashing terror on the provincial metropolis to accomplish their ugly political agenda" as funeral prayers of Altaf Hussain were offered in Dabriyal (Bhairi) village, some 45km northwest of here, witnesses and official sources said.

A member of a middle class family, the 26-year-old, Altaf Hussain, was doing his masters in Islamic studies from the Karachi University besides working in a textile factory to meet his personal expenses and also to feed his family back home.

Family sources said he was killed in cold blood at around 4 pm in Chowrangi as he was returning to his residence. His body, placed in a mortuary, could not be identified for the first two days whereas body of 40-year old Parvaiz Akhtar Kiani, another Kashmiri victim, was brought and buried in his Paniola village of Poonch district on the second day of the bloodshed. Kiani was a supporter of Jamaat-i-Islami of AJK and employed in the Pakistan Steel.

There were reports that two other AJK residents were also killed in Karachi and brought to their native villages but the police said they did not have confirmation.

The ambulance carrying Hussain's body and escorted by AJK police mobiles arrived here at about 2 pm. Witnesses said that two MQM lawmakers, MNA Abdul Wasim and AJK Legislative Assembly member Tahir Khokhar, were also accompanying it, claiming that the deceased was a member of their organisation. However, their claim was rejected by the relatives of the deceased and anticipating the likely troubles ahead they changed their plans, sources said, adding the MNA returned to Islamabad from Rara whereas Mr Khokhar opted to stay in Muzaffarabad instead of going ahead to the Dabriyal village.

Police sources said some relatives of the deceased had planned to manhandle Mr Khokhar if he went to the deceased's village "for attempting to gain political mileage out of the tragedy which had struck them".

MQM has two members in the AJK Assembly, both elected against the Kashmiri refugees' constituencies located in Pakistan with major chunk of voters settled in its stronghold -- Karachi.

Though Mr Khokhar originally belongs to Mirpur but he had contested last year's elections to the AJK Assembly from a refugees' constituency on the MQM ticket, which was launched in this territory in the wake of Oct 2005 earthquake.

Earlier speaking to newsmen at the local press club, Manzoor Hussain, elder brother of slain Altaf Hussain, also made it clear that the claims of Mr Khokhar and some other MQM leaders regarding his brother were "absolutely false" and aimed at protecting the real murderers. He said:"My brother was not associated with any political group or organisation. He was a virtuous and hardworking person martyred by official terrorists."

It may be mentioned here that on Monday, the Islami Jamiat Talba and Shabab-i-Milli, student and youth wings, respectively, of Jamaat-i-Islami AJK, had also staged a protest demonstration against the Karachi killings, blaming President Musharraf and the MQM for the bloodshed.