KARACHI: Three young friends were shot dead while an employee of a hotel was wounded in an attack on a restaurant in Hussainabad in F. B Area on Sunday morning, Azizabad police said.

They added that 28-year-old Mohammed Sajid, 30-year-old Imran Karim, and 35-year-old Naved were having breakfast at the restaurant at around 7.45am when four gunmen on two motorcycles arrived there and opened indiscriminate fire on them and fled. The three friends and an employee of the restaurant were wounded in the attack.

They were taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where doctors pronounced Sajid, Karim, and Naved dead on arrival while the restaurant employee, Nawaz Shareef, was admitted for treatment.

Sajid sustained six bullets, Naveed five and Imran received a single bullet in the head, said additional police surgeon Dr Abdul Haq.

“The possible motive for the triple murder could be ascertained after a proper probe,” Central-SSP Noman Siddiqui said.

He added that one of the deceased had been arrested for possessing illegal weapon in the recent past. They had gone there for breakfast when they came under the attack, he said.

However, Azizabad SHO Asim Rehman claimed that Imran, alias Tao, and Sajid, alias Mastana, had criminal records as they had been involved in extortion and other criminal activities.

Information about Naveed could not be gathered immediately, added the officer.

The police claimed that the two dead men were associated with a criminal gang led by Ghulam Ali Patni.

Published in Dawn, September 22nd, 2014