KARACHI, March 11 Panic gripped the city when a senior cleric of a religious organisation, his son and two associates were gunned down on Thursday night.

In another attack earlier in the day, another prominent cleric, Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Nadeem, was wounded and his son was killed. Police said that Mufti Saeed Ahmed Jalalpuri of Aalmi Tahaffuz-i-Khatm-i-Nabuat, his son Huzaifa Jalalpuri and close associates Fakheruz Zaman and Abdul Rehman were returning from Jamia Masjid Khatman-un-Nabi on Metrovill Road in Gulshan-i-Iqbal area when four to five gunmen on motorcycles sprayed their car with bullets.

Police found the casing of spent bullets of 9mm pistol at the scene. Gulshan-e-Iqbal SP Javed Meher said the attackers had opened fire from two directions.

“The assailants appeared to be waiting at a place for the cleric and ambushed the car when it reached there,” a police officer said.

They were taken to Patel Hospital where Mufti Saeed and his son were pronounced dead while their associates died some time later.

Tension gripped the area after the incident and unknown people started firing in the air, forcing shops to close. A large number of people and students of a seminary gathered at the hospital.

The bodies were later taken to the Aalmi Tahaffuz-i-Khatm-i-Nabuat in Gurumandir.

In the morning, Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Nadeem, a central leader of Ahl-i-Sunnat Wal Jamaat (formerly Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan), was injured in what appeared to be an assassination attempt in the city's Nazimabad area.

The attack, however, claimed the life of his youngest son. Maulana's two other sons and a security guard and a driver were injured.

Police said that Maulana Nadeem and his two sons, Rashid Nadeem and Zubair Nadeem, were going in their car to the city courts for a hearing of cases registered against them on August 17 last year during disturbances which followed the killing in Khairpur of Maulana Ali Sher Hydari, chief of the defunct Sipah-i-Sahaba.

When the car was near Annu Bhai Park, two men on a motorcycle opened fire. Maulana's younger son Mauvia Nadeem, 25, who was following the car on a motorcycle suffered fatal bullet wounds, Liaquatabad SP Abdul Hameed Khosa told Dawn.

The injured were taken to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital. Additional Police Surgeon Dr Liaquat Memon said that one of the injured had been brought dead to the hospital.

Maulana Nadeem received two bullets in his right and left hands and one in the abdomen. Mauvia suffered multiple bullet wounds in the head and torso and died on the spot.

Maulana Aurengzeb Farooqi, the organisation's Karachi president, told Dawn that funeral prayers of Mauvia Nadeem would be offered outside the Chief Minister's House on Friday.