HYDERABAD, May 19: Houses of two leaders of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf were attacked by motorcycle-riding armed men, three vehicles were torched and incidents of firing into the air were reported from different parts of the city on Sunday.

PTI leaders blamed the Muttahida Qaumi Movement for the attacks and said the motorcycle-riding armed men — said to be between 20 and 30 in number — kept firing on their houses for at least 20 minutes and torched vehicles parked outside.

A large van was set ablaze at Do Qabar in Pucca Qilla, a pick-up van was torched at Pakistan Chowk and a car of PTI leader Usman Kennedy was fired upon and later torched outside his house in Hirabad.

Enraged mobs threw stones, bricks, heaps of garbage on roads and raised barricades to block traffic, which had already thinned after tyres were burnt at almost all main roundabouts in the city early in the morning.

Almost all the main shopping malls, markets and bazaars and filling stations except those in Qasimabad remained closed.Hyderabad markets, like other towns in the interior of Sindh, remain open on Sundays and close on Fridays.

Firing into the air across the city forced people to remain indoors.

Speaking to Dawn, PTI leader Usman Kennedy said: “At 6am, the sound of firing woke me up and I rushed outside where I saw 30-35 armed men torching the car and firing on my multi-storey building. Some of them also roughed me up after identifying me…..area people gathered there to witness all this.”

He said that he would lodge an FIR against MQM leaders and office-bearers of its local chapter who instigated the mob to attack him and his house.

In the other incident, the PTI district president’s house in Kohisar in Latifabad was attacked by 20-25 armed men riding motorcycles. “My house was attacked by a gang of gunmen. They kept firing straight at my house for 20 minutes and badly damaged my car parked outside by throwing a heavy stone at it and jumping on it. We huddled together into the innermost room to save our lives,” said PTI leader Mustansir Billa.

Windowpanes of the house were shattered and his family members were so frightened they were not allowing him to lodge a case with police, he said.

He blamed the MQM for carrying out the attack and said that he would lodge a report with police after consulting his legal advisers.

Ameer of the Jamaat-i-Islami’s Hyderabad chapter, Shaikh Shaukat Ali, and general secretary Hafiz Tahir Majeed Rajput condemned attacks on PTI leaders’ houses and demanded arrest of attackers immediately, said a handout released by JI Hyderabad office.

Meanwhile, a large number MQM activists took out a rally from the party’s zonal office to the press club to voice condemnation of PTI chief Imran Khan’s statement who held MQM leader Altaf Hussain directly responsible for the murder of his party’s senior leader Zahrah Shahid Husain in Karachi on Saturday night.

MQM zonal in-charge Mohammad Sharif, MNA-elect Syed Wasim Hussain and MPAs-elect Rashid Khilji, Sabir Kaimkhani and Dilawar Qureshi who led the rally said that rulers should take notice of Mr Khan’s statement.

Our Mirpurkhas correspondent adds: Motorcycle-riding armed men fired into the air in different parts of the city, forcing shopkeepers to pull down shutters and leading to abrupt closure of filling stations as hundreds of MQM workers took out a rally to condemn PTI chief Imran Khan.

MQM zonal in-charge Fareed Ahmed and other leaders strongly reacted to Mr Khan’s statement and demanded he take it back immediately.