Karachi, Apr 8 (PTI) Police in Pakistan''s largest city of Karachi claimed to have resolved a three month old mystery surrounding the killing of a prominent reporter of a private news channel who was brutally murdered while returning home from office.
City police chief, Saud Mirza told five suspected killers of Wali Babar of the Geo News channel had been arrested and investigations to completely crack the case were going on.
"We will reveal details later on but I can say these arrested people are involved in land grabbing and are notorious criminals. They also followed Wali Babar the day before he was killed but put off their plans to murder him," Mirza said.
Babar was shot several times in his car on January 19 in the Liaquatabad area and initial reports suggested that the killing may have been linked to the ethnic violence in the city said to be the result of enmity between the Mutthaida-e-Qaumi Movement and the Awami National Party.
But Mirza said initial investigations had indicated that they were more than five people involved in the killing of Babar and his death could be the result of a big conspiracy.
"They appear to be some influential people involved in this episode," he said.
Pakistan''s media organisations and the Geo network have criticised the government for being slow on resolving the case and described it as an direct assault on freedom of the press.
In another related incident, the brother of the investigating officer of the case, Naved Khan was shot dead by unknown assailants on Wednesday.