KARACHI, May 13: The head of the Orangi Pilot Project’s Baldia office was gunned down in the Manghopir area on Monday exactly two months after the killing of OPP director Parween Rehman.

Abdul Waheed, a school owner and known social reformer who was also active in polio campaigns, along with his brother Naseer was coming out of his ‘Naunahal Academy’ in Islamia Colony near Kati Pahari when armed men fired at them and fled after hurling a cracker-like object at them, said SP Chaudhry Asad.

Mr Waheed suffered gunshot wounds in the head and died on the spot. The body and the victim’s wounded brother were shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.

The police officer said the victim had been receiving ‘threatening calls’ for some time but it was being investigated whether they pertained to extortion or militants were behind them.

The victim originally hailed from Swat, the police officer added.

Mr Waheed’s friend who wished not to be named told Dawn that the victim started his school in 2005. Subsequently, he launched a ‘religious reforms project’ by imparting modern education to pupils of seminaries in his area. In 2009, he told his friends that he had been receiving ‘threats’ from some religious elements. Recently, he also became active in administration of polio drops to children in his area, where the polio campaign was resisted by certain religious elements. He said the victim was the OPP Baldia head and also an employee of the Orangi Charitable Trust of the OPP.

For his social and religious reforms activities, a US-based NGO ‘Ashuka International’ had awarded him scholarship.

He had hired guards for the school recently and appeared to be upset for some reason.

He said the family sources informed him that Mr Waheed’s daughter was also wounded in the attack but the police denied that.