HYDERABAD: After months of sectarian and ethnic killings and incidents of targeted shootings in Karachi, the wave of lawlessness appears to have taken hold of Hyderabad, the second largest city of Sindh.
Two members of the non-political Dawoodi Bohra community were shot dead on Saturday night and three men belonging to an organisation of Barelvi school of thought were killed on Sunday night in the Gari Khata area.
Three others were injured, two of them seriously.
The deceased were identified as Shakeel, Kashif and Mustafa Kamal, the patron of Ghausia Foundation.
The injured included Maqbool, Rizwan and Imran. The seriously injured Maqbool and Rizwan are being taken to a Karachi hospital, according to doctors at Liaquat University Hospital.
Kamal and Kashif lived in Mughal Plaza and Shakeel in Resham Gali.
“Two armed men, both wearing pant/shirt and one of them sporting a cap, sprayed us with bullets in the one-room office of Ghausia Foundation,” Imran told Dawn in hospital while his condition was said to be stable.
“We hold ‘mehfil-i-Ghausia’ on the 17th of every lunar month in a mosque on Station Road. The mehfil was held and we were discussing it when the assailants attacked us,” he said.
Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Cantonment sector office is located in the same former Star Light hotel which houses Ghausia Foundation’s office. Initially it was taken as an attack on the MQM office.
“Both the assailants escaped. They used two weapons, one of them fitted with silencer,” added Imran.
“I called police helpline soon after hearing the gunshot,” said a lawyer, whose office is located on the same floor.
The Gari Khata area around the Hyder Bux Jatoi roundabout plunged into chaos. Shops and a filling station were closed. People gathered outside the building.
SSP Hyderabad Farid Jan Sarhandi, who had rushed to the spot, said: “We have picked up some people who were in the building for interrogation and have recovered a rifle.” He said it was too early to comment on the nature of the attack.
Former taluka nazim Jalilur Rehman was gunned down near a private hospital in the Phulelli police station area on Sunday morning.
