Police on Thursday launched an investigation to ascertain the possible motive and identity of the killers of Sindh Bar Council secretary Irfan Ali Mehar, who was shot dead by unidentified assailants in Karachi a day earlier.

Mehar, 42, was targeted by armed pillion riders while he was driving home in a car after dropping his daughter off at school in the city's Gulistan-i-Jauhar area on Wednesday morning.

Lawyers across the province boycotted court proceedings on Thursday to protest the death of the bar official on the call of the SBC.

As proceedings began in the Sindh High Court in the morning, newly elected secretary of the Sindh High Court Bar Association, Umer Soomro, and other bar members met with judges and requested them to suspend the hearings; the request was accepted.

Lawyers also took out a rally from the City Courts to Karachi Press Club, demanding early arrest of the killers.

Sharea Faisal police have registered a case against two unidentified suspects on the complaint of the victim’s brother, Rizwan Mehar, who came from his native town in Shikarpur to receive his brother’s body on Wednesday night.

The First Information Report has been lodged under Section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, and Sections 302 (murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

According to the contents of the FIR, the intention of the two masked assassins, who were seen in the CCTV footage spraying the car with bullets from a close range, was to "spread fear and panic" among lawyers as the victim was the office secretary of the bar council, as well as the general public.

Sharea Faisal police investigator Chaudhry Arif said the complainant had told police that the family did not have enmity with anyone.

Karachi police chief AIG Imran Yaqoob Minhas has formed a high-level investigation team led by SSP East Qamar Raza Jiskani and comprising the SSP Investigation-1, SSP Special Investigation Unit, Gulshan SP, Sharea Faisal SHO and the Sharea Faisal SIO.

SSP Jiskani said police were working on the case and no concrete clue had emerged so far.

He said the investigators had sent spent bullet casings recovered from the crime scene to the police's forensic science lab for examination and its report was awaited.