KARACHI: The elder son of former senator Allama Abbas Kumaili, also a cleric, was gunned down and his two guards were wounded in a targeted attack apparently on sectarian grounds in Azizabad on Saturday, officials said.

More than a dozen people have lost their lives in a spate of what is being described as sectarian killings in recent days despite a Rangers-led targeted operation under way in the city.

The officials said that armed men sprayed the car of Allama Ali Akbar Kumaili, 40, with bullets as soon as he along with two guards left his industrial unit in Bhangoria Goth near Azizabad.

“He came to his ice factory in Bhangoria Goth on Saturday,” said an official. “He and his two police guards were standing next to the car minutes before sunset when they were targeted. The guards also sustained bullet wounds and the condition of one of them is said to be critical.”

He said that the young Kumaili was hit by three bullets — two in the chest and one in the abdomen.

He was rushed to a private hospital in North Nazimabad, where he died during treatment from excessive bleeding.

The incident, which caused panic and fear in the Azizabad locality, also sparked anger within the ranks of Shia clerics and parties who called the ‘targeted operation in Karachi a failure’.

The officials said a special investigation team had been set up with DIG-West Tahir Naveed as its head and the SPs of the CID, the Special Investigation Unit and the district central police as its members to probe the murder.

However, they stopped short of categorically declaring that the killing was carried out on sectarian grounds.

“No doubt banned outfits have been active in recent weeks, but some seemingly sectarian killings have been carried out on political grounds,” said Karachi police chief Ghulam Qadir Thebo.

“Similarly as far as the killing of Ali Akbar Kumaili is concerned, we need to look at every possible aspects and one of them is political motivation. In recent weeks, we have found that a few killings that had earlier been thought to have been carried out on sectarian grounds were actually carried out for political reasons.”

He said that the investigation was under way and any comment on the motive for the killing would be speculation.

Some sectarian attacks cases registered during the past few weeks had already been solved, he said, adding that findings from those arrests could also help set the course of investigation into Kumaili’s killing.

Ali Akbar Kumaili, father of four, was known for his oratory skills and for his style of addressing Majalis-i-Aza. His father, Allama Abbas Kumaili, was a former senator and chief of the Jafaria Alliance Pakistan.

A spokesman for the Jafaria Alliance said that the funeral prayers for Ali Akbar Kumaili would be held on Sunday at the Numaish traffic intersection. However, the timing was not yet fixed, he added.

The Majlis Wahdat-i-Muslimeen (MWM) strongly condemned the killing and termed Karachi attacks a conspiracy to damage the efforts of the armed forces in North Waziristan, where they were busy fighting militants.

“The targeted operation in Karachi has been exposed,” said Allama Raja Nasir Abbas of the MWM. “Our government and law enforcement agencies have completely failed and there is no justification for their further stay in power. The authorities should move for a sustainable peace as the situation is slipping out of everyone’s hand.”

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2014