KARACHI: A retired army officer was shot dead in the Defence area on Saturday, police said.

They said that retired Major Ahsan Raza, 65, left his residence in Defence Phase I on a motorbike at 7.45am. He was intercepted by armed motorcyclists near Tooba Apartments and it appeared that they tried to snatch his brand-new Honda CG-125 motorbike. When he put up resistance, they shot him and took away the two-wheeler.

The wounded man was shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where doctors declared him dead on arrival.

Senior medico-legal officer Dr Kaleem Shaikh said that the victim sustained a single bullet wound in the abdomen.

The Defence police said that he had recently purchased the motorcycle and it appeared that it was an incident of bike snatching.

However, Karachi police chief Mushtaq Ahmed Mahar told Dawn that police were investigating the murder from different angles to ascertain whether it was a snatching incident or targeted killing of an army man. Besides, the victim was Shia, so the case was being investigated from a sectarian angle as well, he added.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2015