KARACHI: A former superintendent of the Hyderabad central prison was gunned down in the Pehlwan Goth area on Friday, police said.

They said the former jailer, Aijaz Haider, along with three women was driving his car when a lone assailant riding a motorbike intercepted his vehicle near the Khyber restaurant and fired multiple shots at him from a close range.

Gulshan SP Abid Qaimkhani said that the bullets hit him and a woman, later identified as Aqsa, and he died on the spot. Two other women remained unhurt in the attack, he added.

Aqsa sustained a single bullet wound in the abdomen and was admitted to a private hospital in Gulistan-i-Jauhar.

The body was shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre where doctors said he sustained 16 bullet wounds.

The shooting was carried out by a 9mm pistol.

The SP said that the victim left his residence in Gulistan-i-Jauhar’s Block-13 and was on his way to the PIA Housing Society when he was attacked.

He said that he was not a police official as he belonged to the Sindh home department.

“Investigators are focusing on three possible motives for the killing,” the SP said. “These aspects pertain to some personal enmity, sectarian grounds as he was Shia or issues related to jails since he had served in many prisons, including the Hyderabad jail.”

Mr Haider was without posting these days.

According to SP Qaimkhani, he had recently filed a petition in the Sindh High Court contending that many junior officials in the prison service had been promoted and he was ignored despite the fact that he was above them in the seniority list.

The investigators recorded statements of the two women who remained unhurt in the attack.

The SP said that a son of the victim told the police that there was no enmity between his father and any other person.

Published in Dawn, May 16th, 2015

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