KARACHI: A lawyer and a shopkeeper were shot dead in suspected sectarian attacks in the city on Friday in apparent resurgence of violence during the last three days, when over a dozen people, including a doctor, a senior lawyer and three seminary students, were killed.

The lawyer was gunned down on Jehangir Road in the evening.

According to Jamshed Quarters SP Akhter Farooq, as Syed Ghulam Hyder, 50, driving a car reached near Shah Najaf Imambargah, motorcyclists attacked him with a 9mm pistol. The fleeing suspects also attacked the Imambargah, whose main gate was hit by two bullets. Mr Hyder sustained bullet wounds in the head and was taken to the Civil Hospital Karachi, where doctors pronounced him dead on arrival.

“It appeared to be an act of sectarian killing,” said the police officer.

The deceased, resident of Martin Quarters, was a ‘consultant’ at an office of the Federal Ombudsman for Insurance, said Akhter Farooq.

However, secretary general of the Karachi Bar Association (KBA) Khalid Mumtaz told Dawn that the victim was a lawyer and member of the KBA. He said the lawyers would boycott court proceedings on Saturday in protest against the killing while a general body meeting of the KBA would be held to chalk out a future course of action.

Khalid Mumtaz said that around 41 lawyers had been targeted in Karachi since 2010. Except in the murder cases of two lawyers, including Naimat Ali Randhawa, the authorities had arrested no culprits involved in the killing of the lawyers in the metropolis.

He said lawyers and doctors were being targeted by forces bent upon creating anarchy in the city and the country.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson of the Majlis Wahadat-i-Muslimeen said Syed Ghulam Hyder was on his way from his home in Martin Quarters to attend the ‘Soyem Majlis’ of someone at the Imambargah when he was attacked. He said Shias were being targeted because they had taken a clear stance against terrorists while the government was “appeasing” them by holding talks with them.

Some time later, a shopkeeper was gunned down in a suspected sectarian attack in the Nazimabad area.

Nazimabad SHO Ejaz Lodhi said Feroz Ahmed, 32, was riding a motorcycle when gunmen on another motorcycle ambushed him near Hamdard Centre in Nazimabad-3. He sustained two bullet wounds in the head and was taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival. The police found three spent bullet casings of a 9mm pistol at the crime scene.

The victim was a shopkeeper and resident of Gulbahar. He belonged to the Gulbahar unit of the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat. ASWJ leader Maulana Rab Nawaz Hanafi condemned the ‘targeted killing’ of the activist.