KARACHI: Two policemen were shot dead while a police officer was injured in a ‘cracker’ blast in parts of the central district on Tuesday evening, the police said.

The Taimuria police said that when Sub-Inspector Rana Sarwar, 45, left his police station after duty on a motorcycle, armed motorcyclists attacked him near the Peoples’ Chowrangi and fled.

The officer sustained critical wounds and was taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where doctors declared him dead on arrival, said Additional Police Surgeon Dr Abdul Haq.

He added that the deceased sustained multiple bullet wounds. “It appeared to be a targeted killing of the police officer,” said Central-SSP Noman Siddiqui.

He added that in another incident, an assistant sub-inspector and a passerby rickshaw driver sustained injuries in explosion that occurred outside the Hyderi police station.

The officer said that unidentified miscreants threw a “cracker-like thing” outside the police station, which went off injuring the officer and the passer-by.

In another incident in the New Karachi Industrial Area, a policeman was shot dead.

Four policemen riding on two motorcycles were on patrol, when they came under an attack by three gunmen in Sector G-23. As a result, the constable sustained bullet wounds on his head and died.

Published in Dawn, September 17th, 2014