KARACHI, Sept 12: Three workers of the Pakistan People’s Party, including the PPP’s information secretary of district west, were shot dead on Wednesday in their car near the secondary education board office in Nazimabad, police and witnesses said.

Although the PPP claimed that its workers were killed in a targeted attack, the SSP (west) said he thought the incident was motivated by personal enmity.

Witnesses said the victims were shot dead in their car at around 1.20pm by a lone attacker riding a motorbike.

The bodies were taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where the victims were identified as Mairaj Khattak, 48, the district information secretary of the party, Wasim Khattak, 40, residents of Sultanabad off Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan Road, and Sultan Gilgiti, 35, a resident of Garden and an employee of the Agha Khan Trust.

Medio-legal sources said the two Khattaks received two bullets each to their heads and in the upper torsos and Mr Gilgiti was shot once. They said the victims were shot at a very close range as all the bullets had pierced their bodies.

SSP (Central) Captain Asim Qaimkhani said the body language of Mairaj Khattak’s relatives showed that the incident was an outcome of personal feud. “Investigations are under way and I can’t say anything more at this moment,” he told Dawn late in the night.

The witnesses said the relatives of the PPP’s office-bearers did not let the medico-legal officers conduct autopsy on the bodies, which were later handed over to the families after medico-legal formalities.

DSP Abdur Rasheed Khan told Dawn that according to his information a lone attacker was on his motorcycle and he apparently knew the victims, who pulled over their white Mehran for him. “The attacker is believed to have shot the victims either through the car window or after getting into the car,” he added.

He said that no case was registered till late in the night as the victims’ relatives were still busy making funeral and burial arrangements.

The PPP’s city president, Qadir Patel, general secretary Syed Najmi Alam and information secretary Latif Mughul condemned the killing of their workers by “targeted killers”.

Stray bullet kills man

A 32-year-old man was killed when a stray bullet hit him in his home in Essa Nagri near Hasan Square in Gulshan-i-Iqbal in the early hours of Wednesday.

The PIB police said the victim, Yousuf Masih, was standing in the balcony of his house on the first floor when the bullet hit him.

The body was shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for autopsy. Medico-legal sources at the hospital said the victim received a bullet to his head causing his instant death.

Later, the body was handed over to the family and the police registered a case against unknown culprits on a complaint of the victim’s brother.

Body found

The body of an unidentified man was found near the old truck stand within the remit of the Kalri police sation.

The body was shifted to the Civil Hospital Karachi, where sources said the victim, wearing shalwar-qameez, was shot once in his upper torso.

Later, the body was moved to the Edhi morgue at Sohrab Goth for want of identification.