KARACHI: A senior lawyer was gunned down in a suspected sectarian attack in Gulshan-i-Iqbal on Wednesday noon, according to police officials.

Syed Mubarak Raza Kazmi, 60, was buying fruit from his Mehran car at a bazaar in Block-13-D near Mir Ali Chowki when four gunmen riding two motorcycles attacked him, said Karchi East SSP Syed Pir Mohammad Shah.

A patrolling police party chased the attackers when they were fleeing after committing the murder and caught up with them on the main University Road but they escaped, said the officer.

The attack took place at around 2:30pm.

Mr Kazmi was taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where doctors pronounced him dead on arrival.

He was a son-in-law of prominent scholar Allama Talib Johari, said the SSP.

Police officer killed, militant held

The victim was on his way home in F. B Area, Block-18, from the City Courts when he was targeted. The motive for the killing appeared to be sectarian, said the official.

Since Tuesday night, four Shia community members have been gunned down in the city and two have suffered injuries, a spokesperson for the Majlis-i- Wahdat-i-Muslimeen said.

He condemned targeted killing of Shias and said the government had failed to prevent the killings and arresting culprits involved in the murders.

Lawyers would observe a strike on Thursday to protest the killing of their colleagues, said president of the Sindh High Court Bar Association Z.K. Jatoi. Karachi Bar Association vice president Zahooruddin also announced a boycott of the courts on Thursday.

Mr Jatoi said that around 40 lawyers had been targeted in Karachi recently. He had held several meetings with officials concerned, seeking security for the lawyers and compensation for the heirs of their slain colleagues.

He said the Sindh government had agreed to pay Rs500,000 in compensation to the heirs of each slain lawyer, which would hopefully be released within the next few days, though they had demanded Rs1 million for each victim.

Answering a question, he said a majority of lawyers had been killed on sectarian grounds and some had been targeted over related issues while others were hit in crossfire when they were travelling with their clients.

Woman shot dead, husband, son injured

A woman was killed while her husband and son were wounded in an attack on their car in Azizabad on Wednesday, police said.

They added that the family was on their way home in Nazimabad-2 after meeting their relatives in Gulshan-i-Maymar. When they reached the Karimabad bridge, gunmen on motorcycles attacked them and escaped.

The wounded were taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where doctors pronounced Huma, 40, dead while her husband, Bilal Hussain, 50, and son, Hasnain, 14, were admitted to for treatment.

The Azizabad police officer said the victims were members of the Shia community.

However, Central SSP Muqaddas Haider said that it was too early to declare the incident as a sectarian attack.

He said that normally families were not targeted in such a manner in sectarian killings. The incident might be related to some family dispute. Police were trying to find out the exact motive for the attack.

But the MWM spokesperson insisted it was an act of sectarian killing.

MWM demands operation Zarb-i-Azb in Karachi

Allama Mukhtar Imami, secretary general of the MWM, Sindh chapter, has demanded that the government launch ‘operation Zarb-i-Azb’ in Karachi to eliminate terrorists.

He condemned the murders of four Shias, including a woman, over the past 12 hours and deplored that the terrorists of outlawed outfits continued to target Shias with the utmost ease in Karachi.

He urged the government and law enforcement agencies to ensure immediate arrest of the killers of Ghulam Sakhi, Advocate Mubarak Raza Kazmi, Huma Hussain and Hasnain Abbas.

Published in Dawn, July 24th , 2014