KARACHI, March 22: Chilling video images which appear to show ‘gangster’ Arshad Pappu’s head being cut off from the body before his face was skinned and eyes gouged out with knives, a screwdriver and a cleaver in Lyari went viral on the internet on Friday.

The source of the nearly two-minute video — leaked a few days after Arshad Pappu’s killing with his brother and two aides in Lyari in the early hours of March 17 — was not immediately known.

The low-quality images captured at night appear to show Arshad Pappu’s body lying on the ground when a few people around (not seen in the video) start cutting off his head with a knife.

As a man or two skin the face, sounds in the background — people talking to one another — seem to suggest that the scene was being witnessed by a large number of onlookers. Though the fate of the alleged gangster’s headless body —and those of his brother and one of the aides — still remains unclear, the images came as a rude shock to viewers and suggested a high level of brutality among the criminal gangs said to be operating in Lyari.—Staff Reporter