Pakistan's religious affairs minister Mufti Shakoor killed in car crash in Islamabad

Tariq Butt, Correspondent

The funeral of Federal Minister for Religious Affairs and a Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) leader Mufti Abdul Shakoor was held in Tajbi Khel area of Lakki Marwat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province on Sunday. He died in a road accident in Islamabad's Red Zone area on Saturday night.

The Secretariat police of Islamabad has registered a case against the driver of the vehicle that had hit the minister's car. Two of the five persons travelling in this vehicle were also injured.

According to the police, the minister, 55, was heading towards Secretariat Chowk on Constitution Avenue when his car was hit by a Hilux vehicle with five passengers on board.

The minister was immediately shifted to the Polyclinic Hospital in a critical condition, but he couldn’t be resuscitated. The Inspector General of Police with other senior officers reached the scene of the accident and the hospital soon after receiving the information.

The police said all the five occupants of the other vehicle were arrested and shifted to a nearby police station for investigation. It is still unclear if the minister was alone in the vehicle or there were some other people with him as well. A police official, however, said the minister was driving the car.

Officials said the minister suffered a serious head injury, leading to his death. They said the body of the deceased had been handed over to the family after a post-mortem.

He was a vocal JUI-F leader and known for his fiery speeches against his political rivals. He had won the National Assembly seat of NA-51 in the 2018 general elections.

Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif extended his condolences to the family of the deceased and prayed for him, terming him a "dynamic and ideological leader” of the JUI-F and a good person.

Separately, Shahbaz tweeted he was deeply saddened to hear about the "sudden death of my friend, colleague and an important member of the cabinet, Mufti Abdul Shakoor.” He remembered him as a "practising scholar, an ideological political activist and a pious person”.

President Dr Arif Alvi, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, National Assembly Speaker Pervaiz Ashraf and several other political figures also condoled over the sad demise of the minister.

PTI leaders Fawad Chaudhry and Faisal Javed also extended their condolences and prayed for the departed soul.