KARACHI, Feb 19: A man, said to be suffering from an unspecified mental illness, shot dead four people, including his brother, and wounded as many others in two places on Tuesday evening, police said.

They said that Mohammad Ismail opened indiscriminate fire on five people — Javed, Saeed, Zeeshan, Abdul Ghani and Mohammad Siddiqui — near the Ameen mobile market in Quaidabad Chowk and escaped.

They said that the suspect’s brother, Javed, died while being taken to hospital. Later Abdul Ghani and Mohammad Siddiqui also died during treatment at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre.

The police said the suspect then reached the Moinabad area, where he lived, near Dawood Roundabout and started indiscriminate firing again. The bullets hit Arshad Mohammad, Taufeeq and Mohammad Ali. Arshad died before he could be taken to hospital.

The wounded were taken to the JPMC, where they were admitted for treatment.

A police spokesman, SSP Imran Shaukat, described the suspect as a “mentally ill” person. He said that the suspect was armed and he went to the roof of his house and the police were trying to catch him alive despite the fact that the area people were so angry that they wanted to kill him on the spot.