ISLAMABAD - A Scotland Yard team probing the murder of MQM leader Imran Farooq reached Islamabad yesterday.
Sources at the Islamabad Benazir Bhutto International Airport said the three-member London police arrived through a flight of private airline. The Interior Ministry, however, avoid to confirm officially.
"I have no confirmation about their arrival. I heard about the story through media,” a senior ministry official said.
“But the ministry high-ups haven’t not asked us to rebut this information," the official added.
The MQM leader was murdered in London in 2010. Three suspects Moazzam Ali Khan, Mohsin Ali and Khalid Shamim are in the custody of Pakistan’s FIA for 90 days. Critics of the MQM have claimed that the killing of Farooq was linked to an internal dispute in the party being run from London by Altaf Hussain. The official sources said that the team of London police would also meet the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probing the three detainees.
In May last, the federal government decided to give London Metropolitan Police access to Moazzam.
Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar said the government had decided to give the London police access to one of them.
In June, the Frontier Corps claimed to have arrested two suspects Mohsin and Khalid, who went missing after the murder. The two were believed to have been travelled to London for the assassination.
In April, the Rangers had arrested another key suspect namely Moazzam from Azizabad area of Karachi, the power base of MQM. He is facing allegations of playing the role of facilitator in getting study visas to the UK, air tickets, travel expenditures and arrangement of accommodation there.
The federal government had separately formed a joint investigation team comprising a senior officer of the Federal Investigation Agency to probe murder case.