KARACHI: A case was registered Saturday over the brutal murder of human rights activist Sabeen Mahmud, who was gunned down in Karachi a day earlier.

Read: Rights activist shot dead after seminar on Baloch issue

The First Information Report (FIR) (214/215) was registered under Sections 302, 324, 34 and 7 of the Anti-terrorism Act (ATA) (1997) at Defence police station, Station House Officer (SHO) Defence Kansan Dean told Dawn.

The cases were recorded in the presence of the mother of the deceased, who sustained injuries during the attack.

Sabeen's mother Mehnaz Mahmud also recorded her statement before police, saying that two men on a motorcycle opened indiscriminate fire on them while they were travelling in the car.

Police also recorded the statement of Mahmud's driver Anwar who was driving the car at the time of the attack.

Take a look: Sabeen Mahmud to be laid to rest in Karachi today

Mahmud was leaving The Second Floor (T2F), a literary centre of which she is the founder, when gunmen attacked her in her car. She was later shifted to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Mahmud was shot minutes after she exited from a T2F seminar called “Unsilencing Balochistan”, focusing on the disappearance of political activists in the southwestern province.

Karachi-South DIG Dr. Jamil Ahmed said, “It is a clear case of targeted killing and police are working on few possible motives of the murder.”

They were also looking into possibility of involvement of extremist organisations as they believe she was targeted for being a liberal female activist.

Secondly, the police assert that since stability was returning and law and order situation was improving in the city, an "enemy country or its intelligence agency" may have wanted to give a "complicated turn" to it by targeting a prominent rights activist.

They are also investigating whether her murder might be related to some "personal enmity".

“These are some of the aspects on which the investigators are working,” said the South DIG.

To a question, Dr. Jamil Ahmed revealed that they have got feedback from her injured mother and friends of slain Sabeen Mehmud who disclosed that that she has been receiving threats for the last ‘four to six weeks.’

Through these threats on her mobile phone, Sabeen was asked to "suspend her activities", said the police officer. He said that they would get the mobile phone record of the slain activist and would also try to get CCTV footage from the crime scene to get any clue about identity of the attackers.

Earlier this month, a similar seminar scheduled to take place at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) was cancelled after officials from security agencies reportedly warned university management to call off the talk.

The talk at LUMS was slated to feature Baloch human rights activist Qadeer, who is known for highlighting cases of enforced disappearance of Baloch activists which rights groups accuse the military and intelligence agencies of kidnapping and killing.

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