KARACHI, May 20: A member of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and his nephew were shot dead by unidentified assailants near Gulberg roundabout late on Monday night.

Police said Naushad Ansari, 36, and his nephew Moiz Adil, 16, were sprayed with bullets by some unidentified persons when they were getting into their car at a paan shop.

Both the victims suffered multiple bullet wounds and died on the spot. They were residents of Block-18, Samanabad.

The police reached the spot and shifted the bodies to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital. Soon after the killing, tension prevailed in the area and police patrolling was intensified.

DIG Karachi (Operations) Tariq Jamil termed it an act of terrorism and targeted killing.

Replying to a question whether it was a backlash to an earlier incident in Landhi, he said that the incident cannot be directly linked with the situation in Landhi, but there was a possibility as the deceased was affiliated to the Muttahida.

According to the Muttahida, Naushad Ansari was unmarried and was an assistant director in the City Government. Muttahida’s provincial minister Shoaib Bokhari, MPAs Anwar Alam, Bilquis Mukhtar and former MPA Zahid Qureshi rushed to the hospital and inquired about the details of the incident.

They also condoled the death of Adil Ansari, brother of the deceased Naushad Ansari, at the hospital.

The funeral prayers of the deceased were offered at the Mustafa Jamia Masjid in Block-17 Federal B Area, and they were laid to rest at the Sakhi Hasan Graveyard.

As the funeral procession was taken out, shops and markets in Samanabad and Gulberg pulled down shutters.

The law-enforcement agencies were deployed in the area to maintain peace and to meet any eventuality.

Condemning the killings, the MQM’s founding chief Altaf Hussain termed it an attempt to destroy peace of the city. He, however, asked the party workers to remain calm.

The MQM coordination committee termed the killing as an act of terrorism and a conspiracy to let loose a reign of terror in the city.

Deploring the fresh spate of violence, the coordination committee appealed to the President, the Prime Minister and the provincial chief minister to take notice of such incidents which, it claimed, were aimed at destabilising the political setup.

It also demanded the arrest of killers of Naushad Ansari and his nephew.

The Pakistan People’s Party deplored the outbreak of fresh spate of violence as a result of clash between the rival factions of the MQM and maintained that it was the consequence of installing a government by subverting mandate of the people.

In a statement, the city president Haji Muzaffar Shujra and Habibuddin Junedi expressed concern over meetings on law and order separately at the governor’s house and chief minister’s house and maintained that it gave an impression as if matters pertaining to Karachi and the rest of Sindh were being dealt with separately. The PPP termed it against the interests of the province and the federation.

It also criticised the outbreak of violence in NA-255 where rival factions are pitted against each other.