Police sources said Amjad Farid Sabri was passing through the poor Liaquatabad 10 locality in a auto along with an associate when unidentified gunmen fired at their vehicle.
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Onlookers and journalists gather around the vehicle driven by Sufi singer Amjad Sabri, who was killed when bike-born Taliban gunmen shot at his auto, in Karachi, Pakistan, June 22, 2016.
“Two attackers riding a motorcycle intercepted his auto and targeted Amjad Sabri, who was driving”, Sindh province police chief Allah Dino Khawaja told Reuters.
Police have so far been unable to find any clue about the gunmen behind the attack on Sabri, who was shot in the chest and head. “The driver and associate have been killed in the targeted attack”, the official said.
“Two riders used 30-bore pistols to shoot Sabri five times, the bullet to the head took the qawwal’s life”.
Amjad Sabri belonged to the renowned Sabri family, members of the Chishti Sufi order and the most famous Qawwali group in the country.
The funeral prayers for Amjad Sabri, which were held on the city’s major Ibn-e-Sina thoroughfare, brought together large numbers of both Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims, men and women, with many praising his devotional music, humble lifestyle and charitable work.
The Hakimullah Mehsud faction, a splinter group of the Taliban, has claimed responsibility for the murder.
Amjad Sabri came from a family which traces its musical links to the 17th Century court of India’s Mughal empire. But the mystical, moderate form of Sufi Islam practiced there has become a target of militants in recent years.
Meanwhile, police official from the area’s police station said that the area has been searched and no evidence has been found that Waris’s auto was shot at.
Unconfirmed reports have claimed that Sabri asked a provincial government for protection after he received death threats but didn’t receive it. Some of their famous qawwalis are Bhar Do Jholi Meri, Tajdar-i-Haram and Mera Koi Nahin Hai Teray Siwa.
A senior official of the Sindh home department said they were looking into reports that Sabri had recently submitted an application seeking special security. The city was Karachi, which is racked by organised crime, kidnappings and assassinations. The traditional qawwali sung by Sabri had mentioned religious figures, which was deemed offensive.
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Supporter Tariq Asad had place the onus on poet and Sabri Aqeel Mohsin Naqvi for the blasphemy row while seeking to prohibit the Qawwali that caused the issue.
