KARACHI, Aug 17: Five young men from Lyari were found shot dead at different spots in the neighbouring localities of PECHS, Saddar and Garden in the early hours of Wednesday, police said.

Four of the victims were friends and footballers, the official added.

The killings sparked a wave of anger among old city area residents who staged a protest demonstration outside the Chief Minister’s House by taking along the bodies there.

The police said near Tariq Road, three gunny bags containing corpses were spotted — two of them lying abandoned along the walls of a graveyard and the other one in block 2 of the PECHS along Shahrah-i-Quaideen.

The victims were trussed up before being shot dead, the officials said.

“Some area people returning from a mosque, situated near the graveyard, after offering Fajr prayers spotted the bodies and subsequently informed the police about the two suspicious gunny bags,” said Inspector Ejaz Khawaja, SHO of the Ferozabad police station.

“The police found that two bodies were stuffed in the bags. Then our patrolling team in block 2 of PECHS found a similar bag, which contained yet another body.”

All the three bodies were shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) for medico-legal formalities.

The two bodies found along the wall of a graveyard were later identified as Kamran Bahram and Shah Nawaz, both in their mid-20s, while the third victim was identified as Mohammad Saqib.

“All the three were friends and residents of the same area in Singho Lane of Lyari. They left homes on Tuesday night, had a dinner at a restaurant in the Kharadar area and then went missing,” the SHO added.

The Ferozabad police later registered an FIR (590/2011) under Sections 302 (premeditated murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code against unidentified suspects on a complaint of Imran, the elder brother of Kamran — one of the three victims.

The misery did not end here as hardly an hour later their fourth friend, Nadil, was found shot dead in the nearby area of Saddar.

The body was found near Electronics Market, said an official at the Preedy police station.

All the four friends had torture marks on their bodies besides a single bullet wound in the head, said a police official.

A few hours later, another young man from Lyari was found shot dead in the Garden area.

An official at the Garden police station said 29-year-old Mir Irfan Baloch had been missing since Tuesday evening.

“He was hit twice in the head and his body was dumped near the old Telephone Exchange. He was a resident of the Meeran Naka area of Lyari,” added the official.

After offering funeral prayers of the four friends — Kamran, Shah Nawaz, Saqib and Nadil — at Sarbazi Muhallah in Sango Lane, the Lyari residents took to the streets against the killings.

The protesters, including women and children, took the bodies in front the Chief Minister’s House where they staged a sit-in, demanding the immediate arrest of culprits.

The hour-long protest affected the flow of vehicular traffic on Dr Ziauddin Ahmed Road and the nearby roads.

While no member of the Sindh cabinet heard the protesters, they dispersed only after a senior Pakistan People’s Party leader assured them of justice. “Lyari is our stronghold and no political party is more concerned about the situation in the area than the PPP,” said Syed Najmi Alam, the PPP’s Karachi division president.

“We demand that the government take immediate and credible measures to address such concerns before it’s too late.”