KARACHI, March 15: With the police and Rangers powerless to control violence in the city, assailants shot dead six more people, including two activists each of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the People’s Amn Committee, in the ongoing wave of targeted killings on Tuesday, officials and witnesses said.

More than 20 people, mostly youngsters, have so far been gunned down on political or ethnic grounds in the wave of violence that erupted in the city last week.

The brutal trend continued on Tuesday with most of the cases registered against unidentified assailants.

As tension between two rival ethnic communities in the Lyari and Kharadar areas persisted, gunmen targeted three people, two of whom were associated with a particular group, in Lyari Town.

Though the police remained unaware of the people behind the firing, they were sure that it was the result of an ongoing conflict between the two ethnic communities settled in the area.

“Armed men on a motorbike first targeted a youngster, Imran Hussain, near Machchi Mayani Market,” said an official at the Baghdadi police station. “The victim was associated with the People’s Amn Committee.”

He said that a few minutes later, armed men struck again within the Baghdadi police jurisdiction and shot dead Muhammad Sajjad and wounded a devotee.

The victim, Sajjad, was said to be close to the People’s Amn Committee, he added.

He said that the wounded devotee also died.

In the Korangi area, about an hour after the Baghdadi incidents, some activists of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement came under an armed attack when they were overseeing arrangements for graffiti in regard to celebrations of the upcoming foundation day of their party.

The police said that armed motorcyclists targeted Lal Muhammad, Ijaz Shah and Yasin in Sector 49 of the Korangi 100 Quarters area.

“The three men were shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre where Lal Muhammad died,” said an official at the Zaman Town police station.

He confirmed that the 22-year-old victim was associated with the MQM and the resident of the same area.

A few hours later, the bullet-riddled body of another MQM man was found in a garbage dump of Sector 50-A of the Korangi 100 Quarters area.

“The victim was identified as Muhammad Azhar. He was a worker of the MQM in Korangi and had been missing since Monday evening,” said Zaman Town SHO Inspector Pervez Gujjar.

In Nazimabad No 3, armed motorcyclists shot dead the younger brother of an area leader of the Pakistan People’s Party.

The police said that 35-year-old Nawaz Khan was present at an auto-workshop when he was targeted.

“Nawaz died on the spot while two youngsters, Asif Khan and Imran Farooq, present at the workshop also suffered bullet wounds,” said Sub-Inspector Waqar Azeem, the officer in charge of the Shamim Shaheed police post.

The deputy secretary general of the PPP, Karachi division, Sohail Abidi, said that the victim was the younger brother of the party’s district central president, Imtiaz Pathan.

The incidents have yet to inspire the political leadership to take any major move, though the police authorities claimed to have mulled over administrative measures in the first place to curb the violence.

“A few officers are being changed in the strife-hit areas,” said the newly appointed city police chief, Saud Mirza. “We are looking at things closely and would handle it soon.”