KARACHI, July 21: A senior official of the provincial transport department, who had been missing since Sunday afternoon, was found shot dead on Monday morning at a deserted spot near a remote beach, police said.

Agha Dhani Bux Pathan, 43, an officer in BPS-18, had left his Zamzama Street residence in Clifton in his tracker-fitted Prado jeep at around 11.30am on Sunday and his bullet-riddled body was found near French Beach the following day at 9am.

Mauripur police said the body was trussed up with a pillow cover and the victim was also strangled as a waistband was found wrapped around his neck.

The SP of Keamari Town, Rao Anwar Ahmed, told Dawn that the tracker record showed that the tracking device was dismantled at Akbar Autos in Sharifabad. “Four people have been taken into custody for questioning,” he added.

Family sources said that Pathan, who was director of protocol in the previous government, told his wife before leaving that he was going to visit some friends. They said that at around 1.30pm, the victim, father of five, called his nephew, Ashfaq, telling him that he would return at around 3pm. However, the sources said, an unknown caller phoned the victim’s wife from his phone at around 4pm and asked her whether the victim’s vehicle was petrol-powered or diesel-powered.

They said the woman asked the caller where her husband was and why he himself did not tell the caller about the kind of fuel used in the car.

The sources said the unknown caller told Ms Pathan that her husband only told him to take the vehicle for a gas refill and he did not feel it appropriate to ask him about the kind of fuel.

The SP of Clifton Town, Azad Khan, told Dawn that the family mounted a search on their own when the victim did not return till late in the night.

He said that the victim’s nephew, who lived with the family, reported the going missing of his uncle to Clifton police on Monday at around 6am after the family exhausted their search efforts.

He said that apparently it was a case of personal enmity. “The victim was also strangled before his tormentors pumped three to four bullets in his chest,” he added.

Family sources said they contacted the tracker company to locate the victim after they found his mobile phone switched off at 7.30am. They said the tracker record showed the presence of vehicle somewhere near the Northern Bypass at around 2am on Monday.

The sources said the family members rushed to the spot but they did not find the vehicle.Sources privy to the investigation told Dawn that the tracker company record showed that the tracker was dismantled from the vehicle at around 6.05pm on Sunday. The vehicle was also spotted in Federal B. Area before the tracker device was removed.

They said the company immediately called at the victim’s cellular phone when the tracker device was being removed from the vehicle. The man who received the call from the tracker company properly authenticated the codes and told the company that he was present with the vehicle which had developed some fault.

The victim was believed to have been killed some 16 to 18 hours before his body was found at around 9am on Monday.

The body was shifted to the Civil Hospital where sources said the victim was shot three bullets in his chest from a very close range as the bullets went through his body. They said the victim was strangled and tortured before being shot dead.

Investigators said the culprits threw the tracker device near Essa Nagri, while there was no trace of the vehicle. They said an investigation was under way and the record of the victim’s mobile phone was being retrieved for further probe.

Meanwhile, the family sources said the victim, who originally hailed from Shikarpur, had recently got a court decision in his favour in a case pertaining to the possession of a bungalow.

Dhani Bux Pathan was earlier posted as deputy secretary of the Sindh Criminal Prosecution Service department, and he was transferred and posted as deputy secretary of provincial transport department.