KARACHI: A police officer was gunned down in an armed attack near the PNS Shifa hospital on Monday, officials said.

They said that gunmen riding a motorbike targeted Assistant Sub-Inspector Zakir Hussain aka Commando in the Pak Jamhooria Colony area when he was riding home. He was hit by more than a dozen bullets and died on the spot.

“The 43-year-old victim, father of three, was last posted as officer in charge of the Gizri checkpost of the Defence police station,” said an official at the Frere police station. “Currently he was attending a training course in the Saeedabad training centre and lived near Kala Pul.”

The body was handed over to the family after medico-legal formalities at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre. Investigators suspected the involvement of criminal gangs operating in Lyari.

They said that the victim was one of the close friends of Juma Shera alias Shera Pathan who was recently killed in Lyari along with ‘gangster’ Arshad Pappu. He was among many policemen who had gone to the Lyari area to retrieve the tortured body of Shera to shifting it to the Civil Hospital Karachi.

The officials said that his contacts with Shera were known to everyone. “The investigation is currently open but apparently it is linked with the slaying of Arshad Pappu,” said an official. —Staff Reporter

Opinion

Editorial

Provincial share
Updated 17 Mar, 2024

Provincial share

PPP has aptly advised Centre to worry about improving its tax collection rather than eying provinces’ share of tax revenues.
X-communication
17 Mar, 2024

X-communication

IT has now been a month since Pakistani authorities decided that the country must be cut off from one of the...
Stateless humanity
17 Mar, 2024

Stateless humanity

THE endless hostility between India and Pakistan has reduced prisoners to mere statistics. Although the two ...
Moving away
Updated 16 Mar, 2024

Moving away

The sole objective of the government’s development vision should be to evolve sound policies for private investors and regulate markets to protect consumers.
Privacy in danger
16 Mar, 2024

Privacy in danger

DURING a recent Islamabad High Court hearing, revelations about the ease of mobile phone hacking in Pakistan have...
The polio problem
16 Mar, 2024

The polio problem

IT is a tragedy that could have been prevented. Six months after researchers at the National Institute of Health’s...