A visually-impaired Muezzin in Karachi was deprived of a mobile phone and money from his bank account. The robber also changed the password of the mobile phone application of the bank and withdrew Rs.35,000.
“I was coming out of the mosque between Asr and Maghrib prayers two days ago when a man exiting the mosque after Asr prayer approached me and introduced himself before adding that your voice is very good,” the muezzin, Muhammad Amjad, told the local media outlet.
“If you recite a na’at for me, I shall film it on your smartphone and upload it to social media which would go viral,” said Amjad Khan while quoting the robbers as saying.
Read more:Proposal underway to make Sindh, New York ‘sister states’
Amjad said that they went back into the mosque and as soon as he started to recite the na’at, the robber fled with the smartphone. “There were no worshippers inside the mosque when I and the suspect entered,” he said.
“There was a scanned copy of my national identity card in my phone. The suspect changed the password of an online app on my phone and transferred Rs35,000 to other mobile numbers,” he added.
Amjad said that he was saving the money for Umrah but he took away his savings. Mosque administrator Muhammad Osama said that they have obtained the video from the CCTV cameras of the mosque and handed it over to Police and Rangers to catch the suspect. CCTV footage showed the suspect parked the bike outside the mosque before sitting with the muezzin and he started reciting the na’at. Local police have started a search to catch the suspect on the complaint of the muezzin.
In the later development, a man named Hassan Liaquat booked a ride and asked him to deliver the phone to Qari Amjad in Gulistan-e-Johar. Amjad informed me that he got his phone back.