KARACHI, Jan 12: Two rickshaw drivers were gunned down in separate but similar attacks near Shamsi Society in Malir within a span of some hours, police and witnesses said on Thursday.

The killings were carried out within the remit of the Al-Falah police station. Both the victims were Baloch, they said.

The police said that Haroon Baloch, 25, was sitting in his rickshaw near Al Rehmania Masjid where two armed men riding a motorbike emerged on Thursday morning. They fired multiple shots at him and fled.

The victim was rushed to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Hospital sources were quoted as saying that the victim had suffered seven gunshot wounds.

The deceased was father of two and resided in Siddiq Goth, Malir.

Following the incident, area residents and the victim's relatives brought his body to Malir 15 and staged a sit-in on Sharea Faisal, causing a traffic jam onthe thoroughfare for some time in the morning.

Earlier, a 24-year-old rickshaw driver, Ghulam Rasool Baloch, was shot dead in a similar manner near Shamsi Society late Wednesday night.

The police said the victim suffered multiple bullet wounds. The body was shif ted to the JPMC for medico-legal formalities.

Police investigators said they found spent bullet casings of 9mm and 30-bore pistols at the two crime-scenes.

The FIR of neither killing was lodged till Thursday evening.

The police were not sure about the motive behind the killings. They said they were investigating the cases and were waiting for complainants to seek their versions over the incident.

Stray bullet claims girl's life

A teenage girl was killed after being hit by a stray bullet in the slum area of Shahzad Morr in Orangi Town, police said.

Seventeen-year-old Zahra Khan was on the rooftop of her house situated in Orangi Town's Sector 1-D when she gothit by a bullet, said an official at the Pirabad police station.

Area people shifted her to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital from where doctors referred her to the JPMC where she died during treatment, he added.

The victim was unmarried and used to work as a housemaid, the police said.

They added that her family took away the body without completing medicolegal formalities.

Body found

The body of an unidentified man was found from near the naval flats in Lyari on Thursday morning, police said.

They added it seemed that the victim had been stabbed to death.

'There are several marks of injury inflicted by a dagger or a sharp weapon on the body,' said an official at the Kalri police station.

The victim clad in shalwar kameez appeared to hail from KhyberPakhtunkhwa, he said.

He added the body was first taken to the civil hospital for a post-mortem examination and later shifted to the Edhi morgue for want of identification.