KARACHI: A factory owner, who was associated with the outlawed Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), was shot dead in what police described as a targeted attack in New Karachi on Wednesday.

This is the second incident of targeted killing in two days and the third one in around a month as assailants had killed religious scholar Mufti Abdul Qayyum in Gulistan-i-Jauhar on Tuesday and educationist Khalid Raza, said to be associated with Jamaat-i-Islami-linked Al-Badr group, in the same locality on Feb 26.

On Wednesday, 55-year-old Saleem Khatri was gunned down in New Karachi’s Sector- G-5.

Bilal Colony SHO Aftab Abbasi said that four armed assailants riding on two motorbikes opened indiscriminate firing and rode away. As a result, he suffered six bullet wounds and was taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where doctors pronounced him dead on arrival.

IGP expects breakthrough in three cases soon

He said that the victim owned a factory in the same area and he was affiliated with the outlawed ASWJ, but not active.

The SHO said that investigators collected 11 spent bullet casings fired from 9mm pistols from the crime scene.

ASWJ spokesperson Umar Muavia said that the victim was the party’s ‘legal adviser’ in Sindh.

‘Three unfortunate incidents’

Referring to the killings of religious scholar and educationists and the latest one, Inspector General of Police Ghulam Nabi Memon told Dawn that “three unfortunate incidents have recently been taken place in Karachi in which religious personalities were targeted”.

“We got good leads and I am confident that the perpetrators involved in these cases will be arrested soon,” he added.

Also, PPP chairman and Foreign Minister Bilalwal Bhutto-Zardari has condemned the recent spate of killings and directed the authorities to immediately arrest the killers.

A Bilawal House spokesperson said that the PPP chairman said law and order should be maintained in Karachi as police and other security forces had given tremendous sacrifices for restoration of peace in the city.

FIR lodged in cleric killing case

While Mufti Munib-ur-Rehman had stated on Tuesday that Mufti Abdul Qayyum might have been targeted over a dispute relating to the control of a mosque in APP Society in Gulistan-i-Jauhar, an FIR lodged on the complaint of the slain cleric’s brother was silent about any such thing.

Victim’s brother Mohammed Asif stated in the FIR that his brother was gunned down by armed pillion riders near his residence soon after Fajr prayer due to “unknown reason”.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2023