KARACHI: A muezzin and an employee of an intelligence outfit were shot dead in what police described as two targeted attacks in different parts of the city on Sunday.

In the first incident, the police said that 40-year-old Mohammed Umer was shot at and wounded by unidentified assailants near the A.O. Clinic in the Nazimabad area on Sunday morning. He was taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where he died during treatment.

Asif Mazari, a police officer at the Nazimabad police station, said that the victim was an employee of a “sensitive institution”.

The police said that Umer was sitting near the famous hospital along with his colleague, Qasim, when three men riding on a motorbike emerged there, opened indiscriminate fire on him and rode away.

Doctors at the hospital said that he suffered three bullet wounds, which proved fatal.

Senior police officers visited the crime scene and the hospital. However, they remained tight-lipped and not even shared the name of the “sensitive institution” with which the victim was associated.

Some media reports suggested that the victim was associated with the Special Branch of the Sindh police.

Investigators were unsure about the exact motive for the killing till late in the night. However, they considered it a targeted attack.

In the second incident that also took place within the West Zone of the police’s organisational structure, unidentified assailants shot dead a muezzin in Orangi Town within the remit of the Pakistan Bazaar police station on Sunday evening.

Area SHO Shakeel Rind said that Raheemullah Attari, 40, was riding a motorbike when armed men, also riding a two-wheeler, fired two shots on him in Orangi’s Sector-16 and fled.

He was taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where doctors declared him dead on arrival. They said he suffered a fatal gunshot wound in the face.

The SHO said that the victim was the muezzin of an area mosque. He was also a Naat Khawan, he added.

He said that it appeared to be a targeted attack.

Investigators collected one spent bullet casing fired from a 9mm pistol from the scene of crime.

Dawn tried to reach DIG-West Asim Qaimkhani to seek details of the two incidents, but he was not available.

Published in Dawn, November 13th, 2023