KARACHI: At least two people were killed in the span of half an hour on Tuesday in what appeared to be separate targeted killing incidents in Karachi.

According to police, unidentified gunmen in North Nazimabad's Hyderi area shot dead Maulana Masood, an activist of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ).

The body of the deceased was taken to the Ziauddin hospital, where people blocked traffic on the road in protest.

About half an hour earlier, a man identified as Maulana Sajidullah was shot dead in Peerabad Muslim Colony.

Sajidullah was said to belong to the Jamiat Ulema Islam - Fazl (Fazl).

The incidents come a week after hundreds of ASWJ activists paralysed the traffic system in parts of Karachi as they staged a protest demonstration against ‘extrajudicial killings’ and the ‘illegal arrest’ of their party workers.

Also read: Karachi’s sectarian backyard

Further details of Tuesday’s incidents were unavailable at the moment, but the city has witnessed a wave of tit-for-tat sectarian killings in the recent past.

According to a report by the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), 212 people were killed last year in 132 sectarian-related attacks in Pakistan, mostly in Karachi.