KARACHI: A police officer was gunned down in an armed attack near the PNS Shifa hospital on Monday, officials said.

They said that gunmen riding a motorbike targeted Assistant Sub-Inspector Zakir Hussain aka Commando in the Pak Jamhooria Colony area when he was riding home. He was hit by more than a dozen bullets and died on the spot.

“The 43-year-old victim, father of three, was last posted as officer in charge of the Gizri checkpost of the Defence police station,” said an official at the Frere police station. “Currently he was attending a training course in the Saeedabad training centre and lived near Kala Pul.”

The body was handed over to the family after medico-legal formalities at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre. Investigators suspected the involvement of criminal gangs operating in Lyari.

They said that the victim was one of the close friends of Juma Shera alias Shera Pathan who was recently killed in Lyari along with ‘gangster’ Arshad Pappu. He was among many policemen who had gone to the Lyari area to retrieve the tortured body of Shera to shifting it to the Civil Hospital Karachi.

The officials said that his contacts with Shera were known to everyone. “The investigation is currently open but apparently it is linked with the slaying of Arshad Pappu,” said an official. —Staff Reporter