Karachi: Police on Wednesday said they had arrested one of the suspects in the murder of a Karachi University professor.

Dr Shakeel Auj was killed in September, raising insecurity among prominent academics and professionals of falling prey to sectarian killings.

Karachi police chief Gulam Qadir Thebo in a press conference disclosed the arrest of one man named as Mansour on Wednesday., The suspect confessed to being a member of the team that assassinated Auj, the senior police official said.

Thebo said that Mansour was a ward boy at a government hospital and had told the investigators that he was assigned to spy on Dr Auj by a man whose name was Ehtesham. The accused was also involved in the murder of Professor Sibte Jaffar, who was killed separately, apparently in a sectarian ambush.

“This was a very important case and the people were quite anxious to know who murdered the professor [Auj],” Thebo said.

Dr Auj, the dean of the Islamic Studies Faculty at the University of Karachi, was shot dead in September last when his car was fired at.

He was shot three times in the neck and chest, while he was travelling to attend a function at the Iranian Consulate in Karachi along with another professor.

His murder was seen in the backdrop of an earlier Fatwa [Islamic decree] against him, issued by a prestigious seminary in Karachi for his alleged blasphemous thoughts and preachings.

However, the seminary clarified that it did not issue any decree against him.

Thebo said that the investigations which the police did so far indicated that the two murders were not motivated on sectarian grounds.

The police chief further told the media that the accused had claimed to be affiliated with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) but that was yet to be investigated further.

Highlighting police operations to arrest contract killers in the city, Thebo said that the police were performing their duties without being politicised and taking actions against the killers. He further said that in the past year killings came down significantly compared to 2013.

However, he said that the target killings sharply rose in the current month as compared to the last month.