KARACHI, Dec 4: A middle-aged man, described by the police as mentally ill, shot dead his neighbour and wounded his family members in a Gulshan-i-Iqbal locality on Sunday.

Gulshan-i-Iqbal SHO Dost Mohammad said the suspect, Muhammad Ahsan, entered the house of his neighbour, Chaudhry Ikram, in Block 1 and following an altercation opened fire on him and his wife and children.

Besides Mr Ikram, his wife, their daughter and son also sustained bullet wounds, the SHO said, adding that when the police reached the scene the suspect opened fire on them also.

He said the police fired a teargas shell and then managed to get hold of the suspect. A 9mm pistol and .30-bore pistol were seized from him.

The police said Mr Ikram died on the spot while his family were moved to a hospital for treatment.

Unaware of the clinical history of the suspect, the area SHO said the entire neighbourhood endorsed the claim about his mental illness. “Not only the [suspect’s] family, but the entire neighbourhood says that he is mentally ill,” the area SHO added.

Till late in the night, no FIR pertaining to the killing was lodged at the Gulshan-i-Iqbal police station.

Woman strangled in DHA

A 55-year-old woman was found dead in a house in the Phase IV of the Defence Housing Authority on Sunday, police said.

The SHO of the Gizri police station, Shahid Chaudhry, said Sharmeen Kamal was strangled in her home and it appeared that a domestic servant of hers was involved in it.

Quoting the statement of her tenants, who lived on the ground floor, he said they saw the domestic servant, Sheru, going up on the first floor. “When they heard noises from the first floor, they went up and saw their landlady lying dead.”

The suspect had escaped the crime-scene. Initial information suggested that no valuables were missing from the house, the SHO added.

The victim woman was alone at the time of the incident as her son lived in the United States.

The body was shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for legal formalities.