KARACHI, April 11: Unidentified assailants shot dead a manager of a restaurant and a customer in PECHS on Thursday.

Witnesses told Dawn that the victim, Mohammed Ashraf, aged 34, had just taken over charge from another manager at Nursery Coffee House, when an unidentified armed man barged into the restaurant at 3:15pm, opened fire on Ashraf and another man who was taking lunch there.

The assailant escaped with his accomplices who were waiting outside.

Both Ashraf and the unidentified man were shot dead at point-blank range, and they suffered multiple bullet wounds, police said.

A police picket situated several yards away from the restaurant had been unmanned at the time of the killing, people living in the area and those present there at the time of the attack said.

Area people said three men came on a motorcycle. One of them went inside the restaurant, one stood guard at the entrance and the third remained seated on the motorcycle (Honda 125), ready to speed away.

Witnesses said the killing was carried out with lighting speed by the assailants who had been clad in shalwar-kameez.

Following the killing police arrived there and sent the bodies to Jinnah Post-graduate Medical Centre for post-mortem.

A few high-ranking officials of sensitive agencies visited the JPMC’s mortuary, with their subordinates, in plain clothes to see the bodies.

Ashraf was of Iranian descent. Father of two children, he resided in Karachi Administrative Society, police said.

Police said the unknown victim customer might have seen the assailant’s face, as he was sitting near the second door of the restaurant from where the assailant escaped.

The restaurant, situated on the main Sharea Faisal, has two entrances: one at the service lane of the main thoroughfare and the other which opens on a narrow commercial street.

After the killing tension griped the Nursery area and shopkeepers pulled their shutters down. People tried to protest against the killing on the streets, but police resorted to baton charge and dispersed the agitated crowd.

Angry protesters also tried to block the main Sharea Faisal. Police, however, moved in swiftly and controlled the situation.

The DSP Ferozabad, Ali Raza, told Dawn that according to initial investigations, the killing had been carried out with a sectarian motive. Manager Ashraf belonged to the Shia sect, but the restaurant was owned by a man of another sect, he added.

He said the proprietor’s family was plagued with disputes and several cases pertaining to family disputes were pending in courts. Police, however, suspected sectarian motive behind the killing, he added.

An FIR (No 219/2002) was lodged at Ferozabad police station by the owner of the restaurant, Safdar Ali, in the night.

The area councillor, Khwaja Nayyar, told this reporter by phone that the assailants were in their late teens and early twenties.

He condemned the police action of baton charging area shopkeepers who were protesting against the killing.

Ashraf’s funeral prayers would be offered at a mosque in Karachi Administrative Society after Juma prayers, he said.