KARACHI/HYDERABAD: Police are investigating the kidnapping and murder of a Hyderabad trader, whose bullet-riddled and trussed-up body was found in a gunny bag in Surjani Town on Saturday and identified as that of the trader on Sunday.

Stuffed in a gunny bag, the body was found in a storm-water drain in Khuda Ki Basti near the 4-K bus terminus. The body was moved to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for a post-mortem examination and later shifted to the Edhi morgue in Sohrab Goth for identification.

On Sunday, the victim was identified as Imran Khatri, a 40-year-old fabric trader from Hyderabad, by his relatives who took the body to his hometown for burial.

The relatives told the police that Khatri had left for Karachi from Hyderabad on Friday morning to buy cloths but never returned. He was carrying Rs95,000 and after reaching Karachi he had contacted wholesale dealers over the telephone but when they called back his phone was not answering.

Police say the body of the victim was found stuffed in a gunny bag in Surjani Town

The family also tried to contact him on Friday noon but failed. His father had approached a Hyderabad market leader, Yousuf Memon who approached the City police station for lodging a report about Khatri’s disappearance in Karachi.

The relatives also approached the Hyderabad office of the Citizen-Police Liaison Committee to seek its assistance. On Saturday, the SHO of the City police station contacted the family with a picture of Khatri and his relatives visited the morgue in Karachi on Sunday and identified the body.

The funeral prayer was offered in the City cloth market area. The market remained shut as a token of protest till the funeral prayers.

Khatri has left three sons, a daughter and a widow. He was resident of Shahi Bazaar and was the only son of his parents and had nine sisters.

‘Brutally tortured before killing’

Additional Police Surgeon Dr Saleem Shaikh of the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital told Dawn that the victim was shot thrice in the chest.

A senior police officer, who wished not to be named, said the doctors who examined the body found a piece of cloth stuffed in his mouth. He was brutally tortured before being fatally shot, he added.

He said that the investigators were also looking into a possibility that the victim might have some association with any militant outfit.

However, the family made it clear that they had no enmity and he did not have affiliation with any religious or political organisation.

The officer said that the investigators had ruled out the possibility that the murder was motivated by some personal feud.

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2020