KARACHI, Feb 1: An activist of the Pakhtun Student Federa-tion was shot dead while he was travelling in an auto-rickshaw in North Nazimabad on Friday.

Police said that Abdus Samad Khan Afridi, 35, a student of the Jinnah College, was attacked by unknown assailants who intercepted the rickshaw near the Board of Secondary Education office. The assailants sprayed him with bullets killing Afridi instantly. The rickshaw driver was critically wounded in the attack.

The victims were shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where sources said the activist received at least eight bullets, most of them in his upper torso. The rickshaw driver, Noor Mohammed Shah, 50, sustained two bullets, one each in his right leg and abdomen.

Afridi’s younger brother, Abdul Basit, told Dawn that he had no idea who the killers were. “We don’t have any enmity with any one,” he added.Scores of ANP workers gathered at the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital and some of them, shocked and enraged, smashed the window-panes of the emergency ward.

A heavy contingent of police rushed to the hospital and brought the situation under control. The SHO concerned, Salman Waheed, said it was premature to say anything about the motive behind the murder. He pointed out that the bereaved family also did not have an idea about who the assailants could be.