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With these two assassinations, the number of lives lost to the Lyari gang warfare and political, sectarian and ethnic killings in the city during this month has increased to 35.
While the targeted killings, which continued throughout the month without a day's break, kept public life disturbed in the metropolis, it only fetched promises from the authorities to fight terrorism with no serious corresponding effort.
In the early hours of Tuesday, a car was seen disposing of a body on Rashid Minhas Road near an amusement park in Gulshan-i-Iqbal, police said.
They added that the body was later identified as that of Shahzad Ahmed, 25, who resided in the densely populated neighbourhood of Shanti Nagar along Dalmia.
“The victim was an active member of the Pakhtoon Students Federation and a younger brother of our area leader in Shanti Nagar,” said a spokesman for the ANP.
“He was kidnapped on Monday night from an area close to his residence and his bullet-riddled body was found four to five hours later.”As senior leaders and a large number of ANP workers attended his funeral prayers at Dalmia, businesses and traffic remained closed in the area while shutters of main commercial centres on Rashid Minhas Road were also pulled down after brief firing.
In North Karachi, two armed men riding a motorbike stopped near a group of people, opened fire on 38-year-old Aslam alias Allama, an activist of the Afaq Ahmed-led faction of MQM-H, and escaped, police said.
They added that his friend, Anees, also sustained bullet wounds.
The two friends were later shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.
While the Bilal Colony police station denied that anyone was killed in the firing, the party claimed that Aslam succumbed to his wounds during the treatment. The MQM-H stated that the area police were in fact 'twisting the facts and disguising the people.'
“Aslam was a former chief of the Liaquatabad B-Area unit of the party. Married and father of two, he had been receiving threats for some months,” said the party spokesman.
With the number of sectarian and political killings standing at 20, four doctors were also gunned down in different parts of the city this month.
June also witnessed a weeklong episode of gang warfare in Lyari, which claimed more than a dozen lives, with life in Eidu Lane and Ali Mohammad Mohallah coming to a standstill.
Off-and-on meetings between the high-ups and security officials held to review the city's situation returned no peace and even failed to frighten those who hurled hand grenades inside the City Courts building on June 19 and gunned down a police constable before getting freed their four aides — who are facing trial in the Ashura blast and other high-profile cases. The deadly episode left three dead, including one of the four freed suspects who died as a grenade he was holding went off.
Though the city police chief, Waseem Ahmed, blames criminal elements in the ranks of political parties and extremist groups in different sects for the seemingly never-ending violence in the city, experts see a failure of governance and a weakening writ of law behind the deteriorating peace.
“One can imagine the level of chaos at the administrative level when the parties in government look for help to track down those behind the killings of their workers,” said Nazim F. Haji, founding chief of the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC).
He said the political parties' rivalry to control one area or another usually resulted in violence and took ethnic colour most of the time.
However, Mr Haji ruled out the 'external element' theory in the violent episodes, saying that citizens were well aware that “the problem lies within”.
“The police are capable and enjoy all due skills to move against the criminals and there is no need to give special powers to Rangers, as this is not their area of expertise. The only thing which is missing is governance,” he added.
