KARACHI: A local court ordered physical remand until Oct 18 for Muttahida Qaumi Movement's Kazim Abbas Rizvi, the man arrested in the killing of Naimat Ali Randhawa, a lawyer involved in the Wali Babar murder case, DawnNews reported.

Rizvi was produced before the court under strict security today, following which his remand was ordered.

Earlier on Tuesday, AIG of Karachi police, Shahid Hayat, had said that Rizvi was associated with MQM's Unit 178, adding that during the initial investigation, the accused had confessed to killing Randhawa.

Hayat had moreover said that Rizvi had killed Randhawa for pursuing the case of TV reporter Wali Babar who had been killed in 2011.

Rizvi is also involved in targeted killings of eight other people, the AIGP had said during Tuesday's briefing, adding that raids were being conducted to arrest three other accomplices of the accused.

Police had claimed to have recovered a 9MM pistol with five rounds from Rizvi’s possession.

Randhawa, a senior lawyer, who was also a leader of the Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz’s legal wing for Sindh, was shot dead in an attack in Karachi’s Nazimabad area last week. The attack had also left his son injured.

Wali Khan Babar, a journalist who worked for a private television channel, was gunned down in January 2011 in Liaquatabad area of Karachi. Several witnesses in the journalist’s murder were killed one after the other, developments which also attracted the apex court's attention.

Furthermore, Sindh Chief Minister Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah had recently told a press conference that one of the witnesses in the Wali Babar murder case was still alive and was being given ample security.

Rizvi’s arrest and the allegations levelled against him by Hayat had drawn condemnation from MQM’s coordination committee.

The committee said that Rizvi had been in police custody since his detention on Sept 27 as opposed to since Monday night as claimed by Hayat.

The party added that police had previously arrested former MQM lawmaker Nadeem Hashmi in the case of killing two policemen but the allegation had turned out to be false.

“Now they are trying to falsely implicate the MQM in the Randhawa murder case,” the coordination committee had said in a statement issued late on Tuesday.