KARACHI, May 26: After a brief lull, violence broke out in an old city locality on Sunday as a man was shot dead and his brother wounded.

The Karli police said that 32-year-old Sajid and 25-year-old Rashid were shot near the Noor mosque in Agra Taj Colony.

The victims were taken to the Civil Hospital Karachi, where doctors pronounced Sajid dead on arrival and admitted his wounded brother for treatment.

The incident occurred in the troubled area, but SP of Lyari Najam Tarin claimed that the murder was a result of personal enmity. He said both victims were brothers.

However, Kutchhi Rabita Committee (KRC) general secretary Akhter Kutchhi disputed the police claim. He said that incidents of firing into the air and violence had resurfaced in Lyari.

In Bihar Colony and the Juna mosque areas on Saturday armed men were seen roaming freely on Shah Latif Bhitai Road and the Kumaila roundabout, he said.

He recalled that the representatives of both the KRC and the Peoples Amn Committee (banned now) had held a meeting at office of the deputy commissioner of south three days back.

During the talks a six-member body comprising representatives of both the groups was formed, but the situation was still far from normal, he added.

Meanwhile, in a related development, a clash between two gangs in Machhar Colony claimed the life of a young man on Sunday. SHO of Docks Asif Ali Jakhrani told Dawn that members of the PAC and the ‘Bengali group’ resorted to firing into the air at the Saddam Chowk in which a passer-by received bullet wounds and died on the spot.

The body was taken to the Civil Hospital Karachi, where his identity could not be ascertained immediately.

PPP concerns

The continued violence in Lyari, stronghold of the PPP, was also a matter of concern for the party’s city leadership, sources said.

The PPP Karachi division’s executive committee comprising 14 members, which met here under the chairpersonship of the PPP’s former MNA Qadir Patel also took up the issue of the Lyari situation, said two sources familiar with the deliberations.

One source said that Mr Patel who accepted his responsibility for the party’s ‘defeat’ in Karachi partly owing to ‘internal differences’ told the participants in the meeting that under strict guidance of President and PPP co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari, he had held talks with the leaders of Peoples Amn Committee because the party leadership wanted Lyari “at all cost”.

The PAC leaders demanded that the incumbent legislators should not be awarded tickets in the general elections of 11th May, the sources said.

The party agreed to their demands with the condition that the candidates should be ‘supporters’ of the PPP. Thus MNA-elect Shah Jehan Baloch and MPA-elect Javed Nagori were workers of the party.

However, the party meeting was informed that Sonia Naz, MPA-elect, was the only candidate nominated by the PAC.

The PPP agreed to Ms Naz’s candidature for being “first female candidate on a general seat from Lyari,” said the sources.

Mr Patel who also belongs to the Kutchhi community proposed that the community was in ‘trouble’ and the party should focus addressing their ‘concerns’.

Another source familiar with the PPP Karachi division’s meeting told Dawn that the participants also raised the question as to why the party was not defending its positing in Lyari.

He said it was stated at the meeting that a ‘third group’ was allegedly attacking the PPP there, but the party’s central leadership had issued clear directions to the city leaders not to give any statement on the matter.