KARACHI, April 23: Inspector Taufiq Zahid, a key figure in the Karachi operation launched by Gen (retd) Naseerullah Babar, was shot dead inside a mosque in the city's Federal B. Area on Friday.

Four worshippers suffered minor injuries in the firing and were provided treatment in a private hospital, police said.

The killing came about six months after Inspector Zeeshan Kazmi's bullet-riddled body was found in Ferozabad, on October 14, 2003. Police and eyewitnesses said that Taufiq Zahid was listening to the Friday sermon in the Mohammadi Masjid in Godhra Society, F.B. Area Block-17, when an armed man opened fire at him and fled.

Eyewitnesses said that the young man had come to the mosque with a flower basket in his hands. He went to Taufiq Zahid, took out a pistol from the basket and opened fire at him. Hospital sources said that the victim had suffered three bullet wounds, in the head, neck and chest and died instantaneously.

Police believe that two or more people took part in the murder plan and other accomplices must have been there outside the mosque on a get-away vehicle. The four injured worshippers were identified as Yaqoob, Javed Farooq and brothers Ismail and Abdul Sattar.

The firing caused commotion in the mosque, but people soon realised that the assailant had targeted one person and not all the worshippers, said Akram Ali, who was in the mosque at the time.

The body of Taufiq Zahid was taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for postmortem. The body was later shifted to the Edhi morgue where several police officials who had taken part in the Karachi operation came for a last glimpse of their old associate.

Some neighbours of the victim told Dawn that Inspector Taufiq used to have two police guards with him. But on Friday, they said, the guards were not seen and he had walked to the mosque alone. The Mohammadi Masjid is at a few minutes walk from the victim's house.

There is a police picket outside the house with instructions written on it "park your cars away from this picket". Victim's old associates told Dawn that he had joined the police department in 1990 as an ASI.

He served as the SHO Khwaja Ajmer Nagri, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, and twice as SHO New Karachi. His last posting in Karachi was as SHO New Karachi. His last posting was in the Interior Sindh. Zahid's funeral prayers were offered in the Garden police lines on Friday evening.