ISLAMABAD: Two men suspected of being involved in the murder of Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s self-exiled leader Dr Imran Farooq recorded their confessional statements before the Islamabad deputy commissioner on Thursday, sources said.

The FIA had arrested three suspects — Khalid Shamim, Mohsin Ali Syed and Moazzam Ali — for their alleged role in Dr Farooq’s murder.

While Shamim and Mohsin Ali confessed to their involvement, Moazzam Ali, said to be the prime suspect, was unwilling to come up with a confession, sources in the prosecution told Dawn.

In his statement recorded under Section 164 of the criminal procedure code, Mohsin said that Moazzam had handled the travel documents to live in the United Kingdom.

According to private news channel Geo News, Mohsin in his statement gave graphic details of the murder.

He said that at a university hostel in London he and his accomplice Kashif Khan Kamran, whose whereabouts are not known and may have died, prepared a plot to kill Dr Farooq.

He said they monitored the movement of Dr Farooq in London to know about his routine.

On the day of the murder, he said, he grabbed Dr Farooq while Kashif stabbed him and then bludgeoned him with a brick to ensure his death.

Shamim said that he had consented to join the murder plot because he was a diehard MQM activist, sources said.

Shamim claimed that senior MQM leader Muhammad Anwar gave the order to assassinate Dr Farooq.

The JIT constituted to investigate the murder had suggested that MQM chief Altaf Hussain regarded Dr Farooq as a threat and wanted him eliminated.

The JIT report also noted that all three suspects were members of the All Pakistan Muttahida Students Organisation, the MQM’s student wing.

The suspects were sent to Adiyala jail on 14-day judicial remand by an Islamabad anti-terrorism court.

The gruesome murder took place on Sept 16, 2010, near Dr Farooq’s London home.

The London police had named Mohsin Ali Syed and Mohammad Kashif Khan Kamran as wanted men in connection with the murder as they were in the UK when Dr Farooq was murdered. They arrested the three men during the last five years but released them later without filing any charges.

However, it was widely reported that both Mohsin and Kamran had been taken into custody by Pakistani intelligence agents the moment they landed at Karachi airport in 2010.

The third suspect, Khalid Shamim, was allegedly taken into custody in January 2011 and a petition regarding his ‘illegal detention and going missing’ was filed by his wife in the Sindh High Court.

In March last year, Moazzam was arrested at his Azizabad house for facilitating the suspects in getting a British visa.

On June 18, 2015, the Frontier Corps claimed to have arrested Mohsin and Shamim in Chaman in Balochistan.

The FC claimed that the two were illegally entering Pakistan from Afghanistan.

On Dec 5, 2015 — the day Karachi went to the local government polls — the FIA registered a murder case against MQM chief Altaf Hussain, his nephew Iftikhar Hussain, Moazzam Ali Khan, Khalid Shamim, Kashif Khan Kamran and Syed Mohsin Ali.

MQM’s reaction

Meanwhile, the MQM made it clear that none of its workers had anything to do with the assassination of Dr Farooq.

“The MQM is aware of reports in the media that individuals held in detention by Pakistani authorities have allegedly confessed to the murder of Dr Imran Farooq. We categorically state that no party personnel have had anything whatsoever to do with the tragic death of Dr Farooq. We mourn the loss of a man who was our friend and colleague for many years,” said a statement issued in Karachi on Thursday evening.

Published in Dawn, January 8th, 2016