KARACHI, March 25: The owner of a garments factory was gunned down in an armed attack in the SITE area on Monday evening, police said.

SITE SP Ali Asif told Dawn that assailants sprayed a car with bullets near the Government College of Technology SITE and escaped.

He said that the bullets hit Ali Asghar Rajani, his guard and the car driver. They were rushed to the Abbasi Shaheed Hspital, where Mr Rajani was pronounced dead on arrival.

The wounded were admitted for treatment.

The slain Rajani was the owner of a garments factory called Mushtaq Enterprise and heading home when he was targeted, he said, adding that so far no eyewitness account was available and the assailants’ mode of transport was not known.

“We have collected several spent bullet casings of a 9mm pistol from the crime scene,” said another senior police officer.

DIG-West Zafar Abbas Bukhari said that it was a case of targeted killing but its motive was not clear. “We are investigating the matter to know whether it was a sectarian killing case or pertains to some extortion demand.”

A spokesman for the Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen, however, condemned the incident, which he said was a sectarian killing.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the SITE association, Dr Arshad Vohra, strongly condemned the killing of the industrialist and said that it would increase the insecurity in the business commmuntiy.

Policeman killed in Manghopir

A policeman was shot dead in the Manghopir area on Monday, officials said.

They said gunmen riding a motorbike attacked 40-year-old Ghulam Ali while he was returning home after performing security duty in Surjani Town.

“The policeman was on security duty at a piece of land in Khuda Ki Basti allocated for a housing scheme for the families of policemen who lost their lives in the line of duty,” said Inspector Aslam Joya, the SHO of the Manghopir police station. “He was riding home and when his motorbike reached near the Five-Star traffic intersection in the Sultanabad area of Manghopir, two motorcyclists emerged there and fired shots at him before speeding away.”

The policeman sustained four bullet wounds and died on the spot, he said, adding that the body was later moved to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.

“The victim was father of five and lived in a Manghopir locality. The killing appears to be linked to recent attacks on personnel of the law enforcement agencies mainly in Manghopir and other areas of district west.

Man found dead in car

In North Nazimabad, a young man was found shot dead in his car hours after his family had received a call for ransom, police said.

They said area people in block I of North Nazimabad spotted a suspicious car near the Nimra Masjid parked along the road. Later they found the body inside the vehicle and informed the police about it.

“The victim has been identified as Kamran Shafiq, resident of North Karachi Sector 10,” said Inspector Nisar Lodhi, the SHO of the Shahrah-i-Noor Jehan police station. “He was hit by a single bullet in the head. The victim owned a small yarn factory in Orangi Town. He left home earlier in the day and later his family received a call from an unknown person. The caller said his group had kidnapped Kamran and demanded a million rupees for his release.”

However, he said, the number from which the call was received and Kamran’s mobile phone were later found switched off. The police suspected that the murder was carried out by a gang involved in “short-term kidnappings for ransom”.

The Shahrah-i-Noor Jehan police said they were waiting for the victim’s family, busy in the funeral and burial of the victim, to lodge an FIR.

Body found

The partially decomposed body of a man was found in the Lyari river near the Shershah area on Monday.

Police said that the body was fished out from a spot near Mauripur Sarmast Shrine.

They said that the eyes of the unidentified victim had been gouged out.

The body was shifted to the Civil Hospital Karachi for medico-legal formalities. Later, it was taken to the Edhi morgue for want of identification.