KARACHI, Aug 27: While the authorities have lately launched targeted operations in strife-hit areas of the city to arrest culprits of the latest wave of violence, investigation into last month killings of over 300 people appears to have made little headway, it emerged on Saturday.

Sources in the law-enforcement agencies said that the hundreds of killings carried out mainly on ethnic lines were being treated as a routine matter, with the cases being investigated by the station house officer of the respective area.

No special team had been assigned the task of investigating the large-scale killings, the sources added.

According to official figures, 324 people were gunned down in the city in July in what is being described as the bloodiest month of this year. Dawn

SSP (west) Asif Ajaz Shaikh told that although investigation of the cases would be carried out by SHOs, interrogations of the suspects had already been conducted by joint investigation teams.

The sources said it was due to the weak investigation of cases that no one had been convicted by courts so far despite the fact that the former home minister and police authorities had made repeated claims over the recent years about the arrests of killers.

The SSP said that 25 suspects had been arrested in the district west over the last couple of months.

They were picked up on different occasions. Some of them were caught red-handed while committing acts of arson and many others were rounded up during raids, he added.

Apart from the targeted killings mostly carried out on ethnic grounds, last month also witnessed gun attacks on buses.

In Gulshan-i-Iqbal, a minibus of the D-7 route was hijacked and its five occupants were shot dead.

In another incident, 10 passengers were killed in a gun attack on a bus of the 1-D route near Banaras.

Besides, several passengers were wounded in firing on minibuses and buses last month.

The official data shows a drastic increase in the killings in Karachi during the last couple of years.

According to official data, a total of 1,339 killings were reported in the city last year, while till Aug 25 this year the death toll has already reached 1,421. During the preceding years of 2008 and 2009, the death toll remained 777 and 801, respectively.

It is worth noting that intermittent waves of killings that began in 2008 in the city claimed most lives.

Victims from different backgrounds

People from different political groups, ethnic background, professions and ages were the victims of violence.

Even a six-year-old girl became a victim when a stray bullet pierced through her while she was at the door of her home in Muslimabad.

Nineteen policemen were gunned down in the city till July 31 despite the fact that they mostly stayed away from troubled spots by patrolling main roads.

During the seven months, at least 110 political activists, most of them belonging to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, were killed.

The data also showed 29 sectarian killings in the city during the same period. Sixteen activists of the Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan, 11 Shias, one Deobandi and one Brailvi were gunned down.

The city also witnessed targeted killings of four lawyers, two journalists, one diplomat, one doctor and one official of Pakistan Rangers and the excise department each.

A senior police officer said it seemed that diverse forces were simultaneously at work in the city, resulting in the killings on political, ethnic and sectarian grounds. Many common people who were not associated with any political, sectarian, ethnic group became the victims of violence.