KARACHI: Mourners protesting the murder of slain civil rights activist Khurram Zaki offered funeral prayers outside Chief Minister House on Sunday.

Zaki was gunned down by unknown assailants in North Karachi late Saturday night. Two others, journalist Rao Khalid and a bystander, Aslam, were critically injured in the attack.

A heavy contingent of police was deployed in the area and television footage showed containers blocking major roads leading to CM House.

A First-Information Report was registered on Saturday by a member of Majlis Wahdat Muslimeen (MWM) under sections 324/34, 302 and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act.

A former journalist, Zaki was an active campaigner for human rights and was the editor of the website and Facebook page Let Us Build Pakistan (LUBP) which claimed to "spread liberal religious views and condemned extremism in all forms".

Zaki was last in the media limelight alongside activist Jibran Nasir in a campaign against Lal Masjid cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz for inciting hatred against Shia Muslims. The campaigners had managed to get a case registered against Aziz.

Zaki had confided to friends that he was on several militant "hitlists", Jibran Nasir, a fellow activist who was also involved in protests against Aziz, told Reuters on Sunday. Nasir said that Zaki did not specify which groups specifically had threatened him.

Rights activist Sabeen Mahmud, who was also gunned down in Karachi, had taken part in the protest against Lal Masjid as well.

An MWM spokesperson said that Khurram Zaki, 40, was not only a prominent civil society activist but also a religious scholar who tended to attend programmes on various TV channels.

The MWM spokesperson said they believed that banned sectarian outfits were involved in this gruesome murder.