KARACHI, Sept 2: Eight people, including two activists of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, were shot dead on Tuesday in two related incidents in Karachi.

Police and the Muttahida said the car (ADJ-725) of two activists of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, Mirza Asif Baig alias Asif Daddan, 36, and Naveed Murtaza, 28, was intercepted by unidentified gunmen near the Sindh Government Hospital, Liaquatabad, and sprayed with bullets.

The activists were returning to their homes after attending a wedding ceremony in Azizabad.

Both the activists were taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where they were pronounced dead on arrival. Their funeral prayers were offered at Jinnah Ground in Azizabad and they were buried in Yasinabad graveyard.

After the burial, some people were extending condolences to Asif’s brother-in-law Mohammad Saeed at his residence in Yasinabad near the graveyard when some motorcyclists opened fire on them and fled. Those sustained bullet wounds in the attack were taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where Qari Mohammad Yaqoob was pronounced dead on arrival.

Later, Mohammad Saeed, his son Mohammad Tayyab, and Jibran Iqbal and his brother Noman Iqbal and Mazhar Ali also died in the hospital. Umair and Raheel were wounded.

City police chief Asad Ashraf Malik said: “The second incident took place after about 45 minutes of the burial in front of the residence of S.M. Saeed, brother-in-law of Asif Baig. The police were not intimated about the residence of Mohammad Saeed and after the burial, almost all people had gone away.”

He said initial investigation showed that some unidentified people riding on four motorcycles came there from the Bhangoria Goth side and opened indiscriminate firing. Five people died in the incident, including Qari Yaqoob, who was coming out of the nearby Shuhada mosque.

“We have constituted an investigation team headed by DIG Investigation-II Mohammad Akbar, and SSP Zubair Mehmood, DSP Farooq Awan and others as its members to investigate the killings and trace the culprits,” he added. Heavy contingents of police and rangers were deployed in the areas where tension prevailed.