KARACHI, April 18: The city has witnessed target killings of 23 people who include MPA Abdullah Murad, PPP (Shaheed Bhutto) leader Ali Mohammad Sonara and six members of law-enforcement agencies since the beginning of this year.
During January-March period, two bomb blasts have also claimed one life and left 18 people, including another six members of law-enforcement agencies, injured.
Among those killed in targeted attacks were five activists of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, seven of its rival faction Mohajir Qaumi Movement, one Rangers personnel and six policemen. According to police, they have arrested 15 activists of the banned Harkatul Mujahideen Al-Aalami in Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Boating Basin and Mehmoodabad for their alleged involvement in the bombing at the US consulate, Sheraton Hotel, Macedonian honorary consulate, and 17 petrol stations.
However, families of the arrested suspects dispute the police claim. They maintain that the arrested men had no affiliation to any group or party. The families refute the police allegations and claim that they had implicated the detainees in false cases.
POLITICAL FIGURES: The PPP member of the Sindh Assembly, Abdullah Murad, 42, was assassinated on March 6 along with his chauffeur, Hanif Baloch, in Al-Falah by assailants who are yet to be identified.
Though the police had registered the case on behalf of the state, they are not entertaining the aggrieved who wants to lodge an FIR against one of the component parties of the Sindh coalition.
The central leader of the PPP (Shaheed Bhutto), Ali Mohammad Sonara, and one of his partisans were shot dead when they were sprayed with bullets in Kamil Gali, near Kakri Ground in the limits of Kharadar police station, on Jan 12. According to the police record, Mr Sonara, Abdul Samad, Mohammad Aslam and Mohammad Younis were sitting at a place in the locality when attacked by unknown armed men on a motorcycle. The attack left two of them dead and as many injured.
LEA PERSONNEL: Five policemen were gunned down when unknown assailants stormed into the Gulistan-i-Jauhar police station early in the morning on April 4 and went on a killing spree. One of the policemen at the station, Mohammad Hasan Jatoi, escaped death but sustained injuries while putting up resistance.
"No one has so far claimed responsibility for the attack. The motive for the armed attack could not be ascertained immediately," a senior police official had said later. Two of the estimated 12 attackers had also suffered bullet wounds.
In another incident, on March 19, a Rangers van came under attack by unknown terrorists. One of the Rangers personnel was killed and another two injured. Besides, a passerby lost his life and other three suffered bullet wounds in the attack which took place beneath the Baloch Colony flyover on Sharea Faisal. In the small hours on February 14, an ASI, Mohammad Saleem, 35, was shot dead at his house in Gulshan-i-Ghazi.
ACTIVISTS: An activist of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Haji Mohammad Hanif, was shot dead in Manzoor Colony on February 9. On April 6, three Muttahida activists were killed and another one wounded in a clash between two groups of the same faction in a residential complex, Raza Square, on Rashid Minhas Road, opposite Aladin Park, according to the Aziz Bhatti police. Those killed were identified as Jawwad, Sharjeel and Tehseen alias Mamoo. The man injured in the clash was Faisal Mughal.
A body was found on March 30 at a place along the Clifton beach. Police identified the man as Abdul Latif, 33, a Muttahida activist and a a former in-charge of the party's Society sector.
The sector in-charge of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement, Yameen Sikandar, 35, was shot dead in Model Colony on March 28. Hospital sources said that he was a resident of Mohammadi Colony, Khokhrapar. The victim had suffered internal injuries and had marks of ropes around his wrists.
Another activist of the party was shot dead on March 18. The body of Mohammad Rasheed, 27, was found in Azeempura Colony, on the Malir river-bed. Mullah Ashraf, a senior member of the same party known as Haqiqi, was shot dead in Liaquatabad on March 14 whereas another activist Kamran Yaqoob, 28, was shot dead on February 14 near his house in Shah Faisal Colony.
The party lost its Unit-96 activist, Mujahid, 36, on February 26. He was shot dead in Malir. The Haqiqi's activist, Nooruddin, 25, was shot dead in Korangi Industrial Area on February 4.
His body, which was dumped in a ground in K-area the next day, bore a bullet wound in his head. Mohammad Saleem Raza, 36, another Haqiqi man, was shot dead in New Karachi on January 4. He was a resident of Liaquatabad.
BOMB BLASTS: A man, identified as Farrukh Zareen, 20, was killed and six others injured when an explosive-packed car blew up some 1.5 kms from the Golf Club where an Indian singer, Sonu Nigam, performed at a concert on April 10. The explosion took place some 100 yards from security barrier around the venue.
Investigators believe the target was Sonu Nigam's car which had passed by the booby-trap car moments before the blast. In another incident, at least 12 people were injured and about a dozen vehicles damaged in a carbomb explosion, followed by a grenade blast, on January 15. The two explosions took place with an interval of 15 minutes in the parking area of the Holy Trinity Church.
Those injured in the incident included the Clifton Town police officer, Munir Shaikh, his two guards, and three Rangers officials. Police viewed that the first explosion, of a low intensity, was carried out to attract law-enforcement agencies and curious people often gather at the scene of such incidents. The plotters' aim, they suggested, might be to inflict maximum casualties.
On March 14, a vehicle carrying liquid chemical, initially believed to be explosive, was found abandoned in front of the US consulate. The suspected explosive material was connected with a timer and two detonators. Those who had left the vehicle at the place are yet to be identified.
The discovery of unclaimed suspected consignment had spread panic in the area immediately. Following investigation into the affair, it transpired that neither the material was explosive nor was it connected with the timer. Rather, it was a hoax.
