KARACHI: In less than a week, another policeman was gunned down in what investigators described as a suspected targeted attack in New Karachi on Monday.

While a previously unknown outfit has claimed responsibility for the attack, the investigators are not taking their claim seriously before probe into the attack concludes.

Police said Constable Syed Ahmed Abbas Rizvi, 42, and his father reached their home in Sector 11-D near Imambargah Karwan-i-Hyderi in a rickshaw. Armed motorcyclists emerged there, fired a single shot at the constable and rode away.

He was taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead on arrival.

Additional Police Surgeon Saleem Shaikh told Dawn that the victim sustained a single bullet wound in the chest.

Investigators are taking into consideration sectarian aspect of the case

SSP Central Irfan Ali Baloch said that the victim was not in uniform when attacked.

He said he was posted at the New Karachi police station. “The motive behind the killing is not yet clear.”

Probe from three angles

Raja Umar Khattab of the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) told Dawn that the police were investigating the murder from three different angles.

The official, who also visited the crime scene, said that the victim and his father had gone to a bank to draw his father’s pension.

The rickshaw carrying the father and son was around 30 yards away from their house when assailants targeted him, he added.

The investigators are looking at the case from three angles: a robbery bid, targeted killing of police and an incident of sectarian killing since the victim belonged to the Shia community.

“Initial investigations revealed that there was no sign of resistance. Therefore, we are focusing more on terrorism and sectarian aspects as the likely motive for the killing,” said CTD official Khattab.

Hizbul Ahrar claims responsibility

Later in the evening, a hitherto unknown outfit, Hizbul Ahrar, claimed responsibility for the attack in New Karachi.

The same outfit had also taken credit for the killing of another policeman, Sub-Inspector Mohammad Rafiq of the traffic police, who was gunned down off Superhighway in Ahsanabad on Oct 3.

The spent bullet casings recovered from that crime scene did not match with any weapon used in pervious murder cases in the city.

Mr Khattab said that the police investigators did not give importance to both the claims.

He said that the new outfit in the statement issued after the killing of the traffic official had also claimed responsibility of another attack in Sakran, Balochistan, on Oct 2 but no such incident had occurred there.

He said that the same outfit had also claimed responsibility for certain incidents in Punjab but the same proved to be ‘bogus’.

The CTD official said Hizbul Ahrar had surface around two years ago in the country but so far there was no evidence that it existed in Karachi.

MWM condemns new wave of killings

A spokesperson of the Majlis-i-Wahdatul Muslimeen condemned the “targeted killing” of the policeman near an Imambargah and said that the menace had resurfaced in the city.

He said that the targeted killing of policemen also put a question mark on the performance of the law enforcement agencies.

“During the last one week, three members of Shia community have fallen victim to targeted killings,” he said and demanded that the killers be arrested immediately.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2018