KARACHI: An Awami National Party (ANP) leader and former union council nazim was shot dead in Orangi Town here on Sunday evening.

According to police and party officials, 45-year-old Dr Ziauddin was returning home from Tooba mosque when two men on a motorcycle opened fire at him near Frontier Mor in Pirabad.

SSP West Irfan Baloch said the ANP leader suffered multiple bullet wounds, including one to the head, and died.

The SSP suspected the involvement of the Taliban militants because ANP workers in the past had been targeted by them.

ANP Karachi’s spokesman Abdul Malik said Dr Ziauddin had been under threat from elements claiming to be fighting for religion. He said that recently a bomb had been found outside the doctor’s house and the bomb disposal squad had been called to defuse it.

The victim was ANP’s district West president and had been twice elected as UC nazim from the area. Although he was a doctor by profession, he worked for a private firm in some other capacity, the spokesman said.

ANP supporters held a sit-in at the PIDC intersection near the Chief Minister House in protest against the murder. The administration placed containers on the road leading to the CM House. The protesters were demanding arrest of killers. However, they called off the sit-in after talks with government officials.

The ANP spokesman said a Pashtu-language TV channel had reported that the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan had claimed responsibility for the attack on Dr Ziauddin.

Published in Dawn, November 24th , 2014