KARACHI, Nov 25: An activist of the People's Peace Committee was gunned down in Lyari, a few yards from his home, police said on Thursday.

They said Aftab, in his late 40s, was targeted by two men on a motorbike as he was having tea in a roadside restaurant in Nayabad near Khadda Market.

“He left home in Nayabad in the first half of the day to go to work,” said Inspector Yousuf Baloch, the SHO of the Kalri police station. “On his way, he stopped at the roadside hotel to have tea where two men arrived on a motorbike and one of them fired multiple shots at Aftab.”

He sustained three bullet wounds and was rushed to the Civil Hospital Karachi, where he died during treatment, he said, adding that the victim was also a UC president of the People's Peace Committee.

Organised over a year ago, the committee is referred to as a community-based group of people representing all walks of life in Lyari for maintaining peace, but it is widely seen as a reorganised group of suspects associated with the alleged criminal gangs operating in the neighbourhood.

Though the police said the victim had no criminal record, they said he was an elder brother of Lyari Peace Committee leader Taj Muhammad alias Taju.

“The victim was the father of three and ran a fisheries-related business,” said the SHO of the Kalri police station. “Since the family of the victim is in mourning, an FIR of the killing would be lodged by them after the burial.”

Minutes after Aftab's killing, firing in different parts of Lyari sparked panic and forced the shopkeepers to pull down shutters. Life in Nayabad came to a standstill for a few hours after public transport went off the roads following the firing.

Road accidentA 50-year-old man was crushed to death in a road accident in Shirin Jinnah Colony on Thursday.

The area police said the victim, Muhammad Yar, was crossing the road near the Ziauddin Hospital when he was hit by an oil tanker.

“The victim was hit when he was crossing the road with a few other people,” said an official at the Jackson police station. “He died on the spot. The driver of the tanker ran away. We, however, seized the vehicle bearing registration number CF-1980.”