THATTA: Four bodies, with bullet wounds to their heads and chests and hands tied at the backs, were found lying in a pool of blood at an isolated spot near the National Highway within the jurisdiction of Dhabeji police station near here on Monday.

Thatta SSP Mirza Haseeb Baig told Dawn that police spotted the bodies during their routine night patrol and shifted them to the Civil Hospital Makli for autopsy.

Medical Superintendent Dr Aziz Tahrani, who carried out the post-mortem on the bodies, said the victims appeared to be aged between 30 and 42 years and were attired in white and blue shalwar kameez and Peshawari chapals. They had short beards and all of them had sustained bullet wounds to the right occtipal and the chest.

The hospital shifted the bodies to the cold storage in Karachi till their identification.

This is the second such incident in this area within a short period. Earlier, bodies of two MQM activists were found and the party leaders had claimed the victims had been kidnapped by some plainclothes abductors before they turned up dead in Thatta.