KARACHI: A suspect, said to be involved in the targeted killing of eight policemen and four doctors, was shot dead in police custody under mysterious circumstances in the early hours of Friday.

Police claimed to have arrested suspect Obaid Rehman, 24, in a Surjani Town locality on Thursday and DIG-West Tahir Naveed told a press conference that he was allegedly involved in the killing of 22 people, including four doctors and eight policemen.

SSP-West Azfar Mahesar told Dawn that a police team was taking the suspect to Orangi Town’s Altaf Nagar to carry out a raid on a hideout of his other accomplices late on Thursday night. He claimed that as soon as the police arrived at the hideout, armed men fired at the police and the bullets hit a policeman and the held suspect.

The SSP said that the suspect was handcuffed when he was killed in firing.

The wounded policeman, who suffered a bullet wound in the head, and the body of the deceased were shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital. Everyone involved in the gun attack on the police team that killed the held suspect managed to escape.

The SSP said that the deceased was arrested earlier for his alleged involvement in the killing of six people. However, he spent only three months in prison and was recently enlarged on bail. In January he allegedly killed nine people in Karachi’s central district alone, he added. The victims included three doctors and four policemen.

“Most of the killings took place on sectarian grounds,” added the SSP. He said that the suspect was associated with a ‘political party’ until 2010, but later joined a proscribed sectarian organisation.

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2015

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