Agencies-SARGODHA-Police have to bring the case against 50-year-old Abdul Waheed and three alleged accomplices because the victims’ relatives have such “blind faith” in him that they refuse to file charges.

The man seen by devotees as a living saint was charged with murder and terrorism after allegedly knifing and clubbing 20 disciples to death at a shrine in village 95/NB, Sargodha, police said Monday.

According to the DSP concerned, the case has been registered against four persons including the key suspect Abdul Waheed, his accomplices - Asif, Zafar Dogar and one unknown suspect under the complaint of police officials.

On the other hand on Monday, a local court remanded the main accused of shrine massacre along with three accomplices in police custody for three days for allegedly torturing and killing 20 disciples.

The court also directed the police to produce the accused in the court on April 6.

Earlier, the police brought accused Abdul Waheed and his two accomplices to the Anti-Terrorism Court amid stringent security but the ATC judge was on leave. So the police took them to the District and Sessions court but Session Judge Sajjad Hussain was on an official visit. At which the police produced the accused in Additional District and Session court where Judge Zahid Iqbal remanded the accused in police custody for three days.

On the other hand, main accused of the massacre who is custodian of the shrine where the tragedy unfolded kept on making contradictory statements.

While talking to journalists, Abdul Waheed said he had found his spiritual leader’s son Asif adding poison to his food.

“I caught him and probed further, upon which I got to know a woman was also involved with him in the plan of killing me,” he claimed.

Since Waheed suspected it to be a scheme against him, he phoned and summoned his other disciples to the shrine and tortured them all to death.

In the same breath, the schemer and executor of the massacre called the slain persons to be his children. “I have given their immolation to Allah as Hazrat Ibrahim (AS) done,” he described while replying queries in the court and during talk to the media.

He said that their (slain persons) minds had been purified and their sins were removed before their sacrifice and “that he did all for the will of Allah.” He said that all deceased were like his children not devotees and he had no any regret or remorse for the killing of 20 persons.

The Sargodha Saddr Police registered the case under ATA and other Sections while sealed the shrine of Sufi Ali Muhammad Gujjar in village 95/NB where massacre took place.

On the other hand, according to DHQ hospital sources, condition of four injured of the incident is stated to be out of danger.
On the other hand, all the slain persons were laid to rest in their ancestral areas.

Agencies add: Senior police official Malik Ghulam Abbas said it was strange that even relatives of the dead did not wish to file a complaint.

“They have such strong blind faith in their pir that they say whatever has happened, happened with the blessing of Allah,” he told AFP.

Local police chief Shamshir Joya said they were also investigating whether a struggle for control of the shrine was an additional factor.

He said Ali’s son was among those killed, as were some members of the family who own the land on which the shrine was built.

Police are waiting for a forensics report to determine whether the victims were given intoxicants before the gruesome killings. Some of the bodies were stripped nude.