THATTA: Four youths and an old man were found shot dead on Saturday evening at the mausoleum of the legendary ‘Noori’, located on an islet in the middle of Keenjhar Lake.

The dead were Malik Mohammed Ali, Adnan Yousufzai, and Sohail Masood of Karachi, Jahangir Akhtar of Gilgit and Bilawal Khan of Rawalpindi.

The police seized a Honda car that was leased out from Bank Islami and registered on Jan 24, 2006.

Sources said Keenjhar police arrested Gul Mohammed, a motorboat operator who was reportedly hired by the deceased for Rs1,000 to visit the mausoleum.

Eyewitnesses told Dawn that after parking their car by the lake, some people hired the boat and sped towards the mausoleum.

They said the motorboat returned within 30 minutes and the operator told them that the picnickers had asked him to pick them up later.

The boat operator said that when he did not get any call by evening, he went to the islet to bring the five men back. However, he was horrified to see all of them in a pool of blood.

He said they had been shot in their heads and were lying beside the grave. He then rushed to the police station to give information.

Imtiaz Shah of the Sindh Tourism Development Corporation, Thatta ASP Asad Malhi and other police officials told Dawn that surprisingly all the deceased who were attired in jeans seemed to be sitting, as if praying. And all of them had been shot in the head.

The sources said that wallets, cellphones and identity cards belonging to the five were collected by police. However there was no trace of the weapon used in the murders. Some pellets were found, though.

When contacted, Thatta SSP said he didn’t believe that only five people had visited the mausoleum or that the picnickers had committed suicide. He said another boat could have followed the one hired by the deceased to get to the islet.

The police official noted that there were no signs of any resistance that might have been put up by the five ill-fated men. “The men could have jumped in the lake to save them but that did not happen, either,” he remarked.

“It’s quite strange that the men chose to visit the mausoleum in the evening in this cold weather. It’s desolate at this time of the day.”

The bodies of the deceased were later shifted to a bank branch near the lake. No FIR had been registered till the filing of this report.