Pakistan: Awami National Party leader Javed Khan shot dead in Swabi

Islamabad [Pakistan], October 1 (ANI): Awami National Party (ANP) provincial council member Javed Khan aged 55 years was shot dead by two unidentified motorcyclists in the Swabi region of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Saturday, Pakistan-based Dawn reported. 

DSP Jawad Khan said that a preliminary investigation has revealed that the ANP leader was shot at from a very close range by the assailants. Khan said that the assailants moved closer to him and opened fire on him, according to Dawn report. 

Javed Khan’s son Abbas Khan told police that he was purchasing essential commodities in Swabi city when he received the news regarding his father’s death. He said that his father was lying dead near the Swabi graveyard in the Qasimkhel area.

Abbas Khan said that locals told him that two unidentified motorcyclists suddenly appeared and opened fire on his father with a pistol, killing him on the spot, Dawn reported. The attackers managed to flee from the spot.

ANP district general secretary Nawabzada said that it was not clear whether it was an incident of terrorism or enmity. However, DSP Jawad Khan claimed that it was not an incident of terrorism and it appeared that he was targeted by his relatives with whom his family was having a feud.

Earlier in September, the elders of the Bar Qambar khel tribe in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bara expressed grave concern over the rising number of targeted killings and called on the law enforcement forces to take immediate action to control the situation, Dawn reported. 

During a jirga convened in Takia Qaumi Markaz on September 17, the Bar Qambarkhel elders described officials’ inactivity against targeted killings as criminal negligence and said that no one engaged in those crimes had been apprehended so far. 

The jirga agreed with Bara Siyasi Ittehad’s decision to stage protests while not burying victims of targeted killings in the future, according to Dawn report. The jirga participants also formed a committee comprised of ten representatives from each sub-tribe of Bar Qambar khel to hold discussions regarding targeted killing events and other local concerns.