PESHAWAR - A local leader of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) was shot dead by unidentified assailants in Dera Ismail Khan on Saturday morning, police said.
The unidentified armed assailants targeted Maulana Attaullah Shah when he was on his way to home after offering Fajr prayers at Ayesha Siddiqa Mosque.
He succumbed to bullet wounds on the way to a nearby hospital for treatment. The assailants managed to flee from the crime scene.
Attaullah Shah, a resident of Panyala area in Dera Ismail Khan, was a prayer leader at a local mosque. He originally belonged to Panyala but was residing in DI Khan for the past several years.
The deceased was a prominent leader of the JUI-F from DI Khan and also a close aide of the JUI-F chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman.
No one claimed responsibility for the incident. However, the local police have launched a search operation against the criminals, the police added.
Following the incident, police reached the scene and started an investigation after collecting evidence from the spot.
The police have registered a murder case against the unidentified assailants; however, no arrest was made till the filing of this report.
This was the third attack on the JUI-F leaders in less than a month as earlier on July 27, Jamia Muhammadia head Maulana Haq Nawaz Haqqani, was targeted and killed in Charsadda.
Similarly, on May 12 last, at least 28 people were killed and over 40 others injured when a bomb went off near the convoy of the JUI-F leader and the Deputy Chairman Senate, Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, as he left a local seminary in Balochistan.
Our Staff Reporter