KARACHI, Dec 23: Two men were killed and two others wounded in a gun and arson attack on the franchised shop of a cellular company in the Shadman area of North Nazimabad on Friday morning, police and witnesses said.

All the victims were employees of the franchised shop.

At least two armed men wearing shawls entered the shop of Telenor, situated in Crown Shopping Centre of the Shadman area, at 10:43am shortly after a young cleaner stepped out, said an official at the Shahrah-i-Noor Jehan police station.

He said one of the suspects armed with pistols opened fire on the people present at the shop though some of them managed to hide themselves under the front desk of the shop.

He added that the armed men then spilled some petrol from a bottle in the shop, threw the bottle out and set the furniture on fire before fleeing.

Apparently against their calculations, the fire didn’t spread in the shop, he said. It was doused by the people who were present outside the shop as soon as the suspects fled, the police official said.

The entire job was carried out within a short span of 23 seconds, the police said.

Amir Shafeeq, 25, and Sharf Mehdi, 22, were killed. Sohail and Fahad were wounded in the firing.

All the four victims were shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.

Mr Shafeeq was a resident of Gulistan-i-Jauhar while Mr Mehdi resided in Block 19 of Federal B Area.

The franchised shop is owned by Murad Soni, a former district central chief of the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee.

“They fired straight shots, killing two of our staff members and wounding two others. The shop was, however, saved from the blaze as it was located on the main road and people came in and doused the fire,” said Mr Soni while speaking to Dawn.

Apart from its Norwegian link, there seemed to be no other motive behind the incident, he said, adding that they hadn’t received any threats from anyone.

The police, meanwhile, obtained CCTV footage of the incident which showed at least two attackers. However, it was not clear if they had come on motorcycles or used some other vehicle.

“The attackers wanted to burn the entire office, but against their expectations the fire didn’t spread,” said CPLC chief Ahmed Chinoy.

He described the killing as a sheer act of terrorism and said that it seemed they wanted to spread terror.

He said they had brought petrol in a plastic bottle. After dousing the furniture with petrol, they threw the bottle away. “The bottle carries their fingerprints,” said Mr Chinoy.

Speaking about the possible motive behind the incident, SSP Range Crime Khurram Waris said it could be a ‘sectarian attack’.