Metropolitan

Lyari peace body member shot dead

Lyari peace body member shot dead

KARACHI: Tense calm prevailed in Karachi on Friday following bloody clashes which started from the city's Zarina Colony in North Karachi and spread to other parts of the metropolis, killing 34.

Police and Rangers held a flag march which paraded through Karachi's Gulshan-i-Iqbal and North Karachi areas.

Three people were killed on Thursday in different parts of the city, taking the death toll of ethnic violence to 34 during the past 24 hours, police and hospital sources said.

Sources said that a teenaged boy, an ice-cream seller, was gunned down in Khokrapar, and a young man was shot dead in Orangi Town in the limits of Pakistan Bazaar police station.

They said that a man also died from his bullet wounds at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre where he had been shifted in the small hours of Thursday in a highly critical condition.

However, the capital city police chief, Waseem Ahmed, said that 30 people were killed in the ethnic violence, while the police arrested 50 miscreants and seized 17 weapons from them.

The CCPO said that the government had assured the police that there would be no interference in the policing.

‘We will take stern action against those involved in violent activities irrespective of their political affiliation,’ he added.

The police surgeon, Dr Hamid Padhiyar, told Dawn that 32 people were killed in acts of violence in different parts of the city and the victims were brought to Abbasi Shaheed, Civil and Jinnah hospitals.

He said that five bodies were shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre from Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for post-mortem examinations.

The director of the JPMC’s emergency centre, Dr Seemin Jamali, told Dawn that in all 21 bodies and 24 wounded people had been shifted to the facility since Wednesday. ‘Of the wounded people, six victims died at the hospital,’ she added.

Meanwhile, at least five victims of Wednesday’s violence belonged to different parts of Afghanistan, according to sources.

The sources said that a 35-year-old man, Talha Khan, and his 12-year-old paternal nephew, Ali Raza, were shot dead in Bilal Colony, a shantytown in Korangi.

They said that the victims, who worked at a tandoor in Korangi, hailed from Ghazni, Afghanistan. The sources said that the bodies, received by one of the victims’ relatives, Abdul Hadi Khan, were sent to the victim’s hometown in the neighbouring country.

They said that a 16-year-old rag-picker, identified as Akhtar Mehmood, hailed from Mazar-i-Sharif, and his body, received by his cousin, Abdur Rehman, was sent to the his hometown.

The sources said that a 23-year-old man, Abdul Jalil, who worked at a tandoor and was shot dead in the police limits of Shahrah-i-Noorjahan, belonged to Kabul and his body was also sent to his hometown.

Meanwhile, the sources said, a 23-year-old man, Naeem Ullah, who was shot dead by terrorists in Bilal Colony, Korangi, hailed from South Waziristan.

The sources said that the victim’s paternal cousin, Khiyal Mohammed, received the body and took it to the victim’s hometown.

The victim’s cousin told Dawn that the young man had been married two years ago and had a one-year-old daughter.

He said that the victim was a driver of a passenger minibus of route F-18. He said that the victim along with two others got down from the minibus after his duty at Do Mint Chowrangi in North Karachi in the evening on Wednesday and he was first beaten up and then shot dead.