Karachi police on Monday launched an investigation to ascertain possible motives behind the murder of an army man who was gunned down in Bahadurabad the previous night, officials said.

Police said that Adnan Abbasi, 47, was shot and killed by “an unknown suspect due to unknown reasons” near Mariam Masjid, Adamjee Nagar on Sunday. He was killed in the presence of his family while riding a motorcycle, officials said.

Bahadurabad Station Investigation Officer (SIO) Amir Altaf told Dawn.com that police registered a murder case on the complaint of the family and launched a probe.

He said Abbasi was an army soldier and was riding a motorcycle with his wife and children when the suspects attacked him. “He suffered critical bullet injuries and was transported to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where doctors pronounced him dead.”

Karachi Additional Inspector General of Police (IGP) Javed Odho told Dawn.com that the police were probing the incident from different aspects.

According to him, the circumstances and events suggested that it was a targeted murder motivated by some considerations, probably personal enmity.

“The suspects were already present there and they did not attempt to loot any bike-riders passing through the area, thus it did not appear to be a robbery-related incident though the investigators did not ‘completely’ rule out the possibility of the robbery,” IGP Odho said.

He said the family insisted on lodging the first information report (FIR) under Section 302 (premeditated murder) of the Pakistan Penal Code, not robbery-related, which meant they had “some information” about the possible suspects.

Relatives told the police that they would approach them after the burial of the victim in his native area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to SIO Altaf.

According to a statement by East police spokesperson Syed Umair Shah, the incident occurred around 10:03pm on Sunday.

“A suspect who wore a helmet resorted to firing on Adnan Abbasi. The suspect’s accomplice was standing at ‘considerable distance’. The killer ran towards his accomplice after the firing,” the police statement said.

Some evidence has been collected from the spot, with one such “evidence” suggesting that the killer was waiting there for around 20 minutes, motorcycles were passing by in the meantime.

“When the victim arrived there, the armed suspect ‘all of a sudden’ opened fire on him,” the statement said.

The incident is being probed from “different aspects”.

“It would be premature to conclude that the murder was an outcome of robbery resistance or other aspect was involved,” the statement added.