HYDERABAD: Police found bullet-riddled bodies of two men, believed to be affiliated with a banned outfit, at a desolate place off the Superhighway near Kotri on Wednesday.

The bodies identified as those of Usman Rajput and Faheem had bullet wounds to their heads. They were wearing shalwar kameez when they were murdered and were residents of Nishtar Colony near Mehboob cricket ground in Unit-5 of Latifabad.

Kotri police shifted the bodies to Kotri taluka hospital where the families identified and received them. The aggrieved families said their loved ones had gone missing since Nov 14 after they were picked up by occupants of a car.

Mohammad Imran Rajput said that his brother Usman and neighbour Faheem were returning from a mosque at around 5.30pm when some men in a Corolla car and unknown persons riding two motorcycles whisked them away.

“Since then their whereabouts remained unknown to us though we kept searching for them,” he said while talking to a group of journalists at the taluka hospital.

He said that he had filed applications to police and other authorities concerned but to no avail. “They have been murdered like animals,” he said.

He rejected police’s claim about his brother’s association with any banned outfit and said that he was not linked to any party but he was a practising Muslim who was way too religious. Usman had three children and owned a grocery shop while Faheem owned a rickshaw and was a father of three, he said.

Kotri police have not yet registered a case about the double murder but SHO of Kotri police station had told the heirs that police could lodge their FIR if they wanted.

Police sources claimed the deceased were said to be behind a recent spate of targeted killings of policemen in Hyderabad city.

According to Cantonment police, Usman was arrested in January 2010 in an attempted house robbery case along with Wasim Qureshi and Sunny Abdullah in Saddar area and he was associated with a banned outfit as well.

The sources said that Sunny Abdullah had been picked up but released later. He stayed in Karachi for some time and had recently returned to Hyderabad.

The bodies were laid to rest in Unit-10 Latifabad graveyard.

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2014