KARACHI: A worker of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) was shot dead in what police described as an attack on sectarian grounds in New Karachi on Saturday.

The area police said that armed assailants riding a motorbike intercepted rickshaw driver Muhammad Wasiuddin Sheikh, 35, near the Powerhouse traffic intersection when he was driving his three-wheeler.

“The armed men fired multiple shots that left him badly wounded and sped away,” said an official at the New Karachi police station. “He died during treatment at the Abbasi Shaheed Hopital.”

The victim was hit by three bullets. He was a resident of New Karachi and the body was handed over to the family after medico-legal formalities, he added. A spokesman for the ASWJ condemned the incident and said that the police and security agencies had failed to protect the workers and leaders of his party despite several assurances. “Wasiuddin was a senior party member and actively attached with our New Karachi’s organisational structure,” he added.

Three ‘hit men’ held

Pakistan Rangers, Sindh claimed to have arrested three men, said to be associated with a political party, for their alleged involvement in multiple incidents of killings.

“During a raid on a hideout in Akal Bonga in Ranchhore Lines, three target killers affiliated with the militant wing of a political party were arrested,” said a Rangers spokesman.

Published in Dawn, November 9th, 2014