KARACHI, Nov 15: Two policemen were shot dead off the Superhighway on Thursday evening, bringing the number of policemen killed in the city during the current year to 102.

One of the victims just before his death had called his superior officer, informing him that they had been shot at near Wilayat Shah Mazar, DIG (east) Shahid Hayat told Dawn.

Police constables Mohammad Kamran and Asghar Ali, both deputed at the Sabzi Mandi police post, after their duty hours went to have tea when they were targeted, said an official at the Sachal police station.

Shortly after leaving their workplace, constable Kamran phoned his superior officer informing him that they had been shot at and wounded, said DIG Hayat. He added that Kamran also specified the place near the shrine where they were attacked.

But by the time police reached the spot both the policemen were dead.

“It seems that they [policemen] were following or had seen some criminals who fired at them and fled,” the DIG said.

He said the place where the bodies were found was quite far from the main road and there seemed to be no other reason for them to have been killed there.

The police shifted the bodies to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for medico-legal formalities. Three found shot dead

Earlier, the bullet-riddled bodies of three young men were found in a car in PIB Colony.

Police said the car was found parked near Ghausia Masjid.

“The three men were shot at in the car. Someone sitting in the front seat carried out the shooting, as spent bullet casings were found from the car,” said DIG Hayat.

The victims were later identified as Ashfaq Ahmed, 25, Ziauddin, 35, and Mohammad Javed, 45.

The police said that they were residents of Sohrab Goth and associated with sand and gravel work.

The police investigators said Javed’s original name was Hizbullah Meshed and he had recently changed his name. He was supposed to fly to Bahrain where his brother is settled and for that purpose he had changed his name, the investigators added.

The motive for the killings could not be clear immediately. Man killed in North Nazimabad

The body of a young man was found near Premier College in Block H, North Nazimabad.

The body was wrapped in a bedspread, said an official at the Hydri police station.

The victim was in his mid-20s, he added.

The police shifted the body to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for a post-mortem examination where doctors said that the victim had been strangled and that there were torture marks all over his body.

Following the medic-legal formalities, the body was shifted to the Edhi morgue for want of identification.

Man gunned down

A man was shot dead in Ghaziabad area within the remit of the Manghopir police station.

The victim had been shot in the head, said Manghopir SHO Nasir Mehmood.

The police shifted the body to the Civil Hospital Karachi for medico-legal formalities.

Later, the body was taken to the Edhi morgue.

Woman killed in Quaidabad

The body of an unidentified woman was found in the Quaidabad area, police said.

They added the body was found from bushes in Rind Goth within the remit of the Quaidabad police station.

The victim was in her mid-30s, the police said.

The woman was wearing yellow clothes and had apparently been strangled, police said.

The body was taken to the JPMC for medico-legal formalities.

Woman shot dead

A woman was killed and four others were wounded in a house in Saeedabad on Thursday, police said.

The officials added that the incident took place in Sector 14-C of Saeedabad where armed men barged into a house and shot at four women and a man.

One of the women died on the spot while three other women and a man were taken to the Civil Hospital Karachi, where they were admitted for treatment.

The police said the place was a brothel and described monetary dispute as a motive for the killing.