KARACHI, May 20: A closed-circuit television camera recorded a targeted killing of a policeman executed close to M.A Jinnah Road on Tuesday evening.

Assistant Sub-Inspector Shoaib Sardar, 35, of traffic police had just reported for duty at a traffic kiosk close to the Kandawala Building when two assailants on a motorcycle shot him dead in a targeted attack. The assailants appeared professional killers as it took them just seven seconds to fire six bullets and escape, police said.

The ASI, who had earlier served in defunct district central, was transferred to the traffic police from the operation branch of the police about a year ago.

A senior police officer said, “He was perhaps one of the few low-ranking police officers left alive who performed their duties during the Karachi Operation.” The assailants seemed so trained that the commission of crime took only seven seconds. They fired six shots all hitting the ASI in the upper part of the body, causing his instant death, the officer said.

Police have retrieved the incident’s video footage from a nearby installed camera of a private bank. The footage shows that the two assailants in white shirts came from M.A Jinnah Road as the traffic heading towards the Bambino Cinema came to a halt while traffic coming from M.A. Jinnah Road took a right turn towards Garden.

The case’s investigation was assigned to the superintendent police of the Special Investigation Unit. Several officers who took part in the Karachi Operation have been killed during the last few years.

A police official said nearly 90 high-profile cases, including those of several policemen, had been pending with the police. One of the pending cases was that of DSP Karachi Central Jail Amanullah Khan Niazi, who was gunned down in June 2006 in an ambush attack, just a few yards away from Tuesday’s crime scene.

Found dead