Karachi: Target-killing claims seven more lives

Salis bin Perwaiz


KARACHI: Target killers continued to claim victims at will as seven people, including three activists of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), were shot dead in different parts of the city on Tuesday and the law and order situation was also disturbed as political workers reacted strongly to the killings.

Two tortured and bullet-riddled bodies were found from the Malir Cantonment area. The corpses were retrieved and taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for legal formalities.

Sub-Divisional Police Officer Iftekhar Lodhi of the Sohrab Goth division said the victims were identified as MQM activists Mohammed Azhar Khan and Kamran Ali. The victims were residents of the Ehsanabad area in Scheme-33 of Sohrab Goth.

Police claimed both men were kidnapped late on Monday from outside their homes by unidentified men in a car and were taken to an unknown location, where they were brutally tortured and shot dead, adding that their bodies were later found from the Malir Cantt area on Tuesday morning.

Lodhi added that the deceased suffered multiple bullet wounds to their bodies. The police, after completing the legal formalities, handed over the bodies to the legal heirs.

The Sohrab Goth area remained tense after the discovery of the two MQM workers’ bodies and the party leadership also protested against the double murder. They demanded that the authorities immediately arrest the murderers of the activists.

In yet another incident senior MQM worker Anwer Alam alias two armed motorcyclists gunned down Babu near the party’s sector office close to Noorani Kabab House.

SHO Aijaz Ali Khwaja of the Ferozabad police station said the law enforcers rushed the 42-year-old victim to the JPMC, where he was pronounced dead. Alam was a senior worker of the MQM and a former councilor of Ferozabad. He also lived in Block-II of the same area.

The victim had been shot four times and the police had also found the empty casings of a 9mm pistol from the scene. Investigators believed that this was yet another case of target killing.

Following the murder, armed miscreants resorted to aerial firing and forced the traders to close their businesses. Activists and the leadership of the MQM launched a protest and demanded that the authorities arrest the killers.

In an unrelated incident, Syed Mehdi Raza, aged between 40 and 45, was shot to death in Nazimabad No-2 near the Jamia Imamia Imambargah. SP Liaquatabad Town Nauman Sidduiqi said that the police rushed to the scene and found a man lying injured. The victim was taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries during treatment.

It was discovered that the deceased owned a printing press shop in the area where he was targeted and resided in North Karachi. On Tuesday afternoon, Raza went to the Imambargah to offer prayers and was heading back to his shop when two armed motorcyclists shot him and fled from the scene of the crime. The victim suffered four bullet wounds to various parts of the body.

Sidduiqi said that six empty shells of 9mm bullets were found from the scene of the crime and these were later sent to the Sindh Police Lab for forensic tests. The police believed that Raza’s murder was the latest in the ongoing wave of sectarian killings.

Tension gripped the area after Raza’s slaying and unidentified men resorted to aerial firing and spread panic among the locals. The funeral prayers of the deceased were offered on the Alay Aba Imambargah and he was buried at the Wadi-e-Islam in North Karachi.

Separately, a registrar of the Dawood College of Engineering and Technology Ghulam Shabbir Baghio and his 25-year-old son Farooq were shot at near Time Medicos on the National Stadium Road in the New Town police limits.

SDPO Nazeer Abro of New Town Division said the injured were rushed to Aga Khan Hospital for treatment and remained in critical condition. Shabbir Baghio is the Registrar of DCET, while Farooq, his younger son, was studying at the same college. The victims lived in the Gulshan-e-Iqbal area.

Baghio and his son were heading towards the college when two armed motorcyclists ambushed their vehicle. The assailants sprayed the car with bullets and fled after leaving father and son injured.

The police had also found 9mm bullet casings from the crime scene, which were sent to the Sindh Police Lab. Shabbir Baghio was shot four times, while his son Farooq suffered six bullet wounds. Both victims are struggling for their lives and remain in critical condition.

Although initial investigations suggest that this was a targeted attack, it is too early to determine motive behind as the police were waiting for the statement of the victims, SDPO Abro said.

Meanwhile, two more bodies were found on Tuesday. The tortured and bullet riddled corpses were found lying near the Navy Boundry Wall of Illyas Goth.

Duty Officer Sub-Inspector Zulfiqar of the Ibrahim Hyderi police station said that the law enforcers recovered the bodies and with the help of rescue teams and shifted them to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC).

Zulfiqar claimed that no bullet casings were recovered from the scene, which indicated that the victims had been killed in another area and their bodies were dumped in the Ibrahim Hyderi police limits.

Also, a tortured and bullet riddled body was found from the Malir City area near Bakra Piri Police said that criminals kidnapped the victim from an unknown location and dumped his body in the area after brutally torturing the man and killing him. The deceased remains unidentified and a case was reported.