KARACHI: Four young men have been gunned down in two ‘sectarian’ attacks in the city, police said on Monday.

Two of the victims were targeted in the Hussainabad area of Azizabad and the other two were chased before being targeted in the Pirabad area, they added.

The police investigators said four people sustained gunshot wounds in the attack on Lajawab Bakery in Hussainabad. It was around 1.45am when four suspects riding two motorbikes appeared there, two of them disembarked and opened fire on the people sitting in the bakery before fleeing with their waiting accomplices.

The victims were rushed to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where doctors pronounced Fida Ali, 32, and Zeeshan Ali, 30, dead, while Akhter Ali and Mumtaz Ali were admitted for treatment.

Fida and Zeeshan worked in a factory as accountant and salesman, respectively.

“It appeared to be sectarian killing,” said Azizabad SHO Haseebullah Qureshi.

The area police said Fida was Shia and Zeeshan was Sunni.

The Azizabad police said this was the second gun attack on the bakery as in the 2012 attack, a worker, Zubair, was killed.

In Pirabad, two men were gunned down apparently in sectarian attacks at around 7.30am on Monday, police said.

They added that Kashif Rizvi, 35, and Jaffer Hussain, 45, left their home on a motorbike and were near Qalandria Chowk when they were attacked.

Both were shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where doctors pronounced them dead on arrival.

SSP West Irfan Baloch said: “It appears to be a targeted killing case linked with sectarianism.”

A Pirabad police official said the victims resided near an Imambargah in Qasba Colony. He said Kashif had a cable business.

Meanwhile, the funeral prayers for a local leader of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat were offered in Taiser Town before his burial in Surjani Town graveyard on Monday.

ASWJ leader Abdul Qadir aka Mufti Abdul Manan was targeted along with Nazeer Muavia in Nazimabad late Sunday night, according to the Hyderi Market police and the ASWJ spokesperson. The wounded were taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where Mufti Abdul Manan was pronounced dead on arrival while Nazeer was admitted for treatment.

The police said the condition of Nazeer was said to be critical and he was not in a position to record his statement.

ASWJ leader Maulana Aurangzeb Farooqi said their party workers were being frequently targeted but the government failed to arrest the culprits involved in it. He asked the chief justice to take suo motu notice of the sectarian killings.

Earlier, Allama Rab Nawaz Hanafi who led the funeral prayers demanded that the coalition partners in Sindh step down if the government could not maintain peace.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2014