KARACHI: A former leader of the outlawed Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan who suffered bullet wounds in a late Thursday night ambush, which left another prominent leader dead, passed away at the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital in the early hours of Saturday.

The deceased leaders – Engineer Ilyas Zubair and Qari Shafiq-ur-Rehman – were laid to rest in the Dalmia graveyard on Saturday amid tension and panic in parts of the city.

They were at present associated with the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat as its provincial chief and spokesman, respectively.

A few incidents of firing and forcible closure of shops were reported in some parts of the city after the ambush.

Namaz-i-janaza was offered at the Siddique-i-Akbar mosque near Nagin Chowrangi in North Karachi after the Zuhar prayers.

A large number of party workers and sympathisers attended the funeral procession of the two leaders. They chanted slogans against the government and demanded the arrest of the killers.

Tension prevailed along the route of the funeral procession on Rashid Minhas Road where traffic remained thin and commercial activities came to a standstill.

‘Frequent killings of our leaders and workers show the failure of the government,’ said Maulana Muhammad Fayyaz, a central leader of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat.

‘We have demanded of the government to show progress witin a week over the arrest of the killers and if it fails to do so we would set our agenda.’

The two leaders were ambushed near Teen Hatti within the remit of the Jamshed Quarters police station when five unidentified assailants riding three motorcycles sprayed their car with bullets, killing Engineer Zubair on the spot and critically wounding Qari Shafiq-ur-Rehman, who later succumbed to his wounds during treatment.