Former video store owner killed

Peoples Aman Committee office burned down in Kharadar.

KARACHI: The 55-year old owner of Imran Videos, a now-defunct video store in Rainbow Centre, was gunned down in Kharadar on Tuesday morning.

Saddar Town SP Irshad Ali Raza Sehar said it appeared to be a “targeted hit”.

Abdul Ghaffar was sitting on the footpath of Chagla Street in Kharadar with four friends when a white Suzuki FX stopped nearby. A man “reportedly wearing a Sindhi cap and clad in a white shalwar kameez” approached Ghaffar and fired four bullets at him. The assailant fled and Ghaffar was shifted to Civil hospital where he died during treatment, added Sehar.

He said that the victim had no links to criminal elements. “However, we have heard that he had a verbal argument with someone a few days ago. The police will look into these aspects,” he said. The police have registered an FIR against unidentified persons on the complaint of the victim’s son, Imran. The victim had reportedly shut down his business around 2004 or 2005, a shopkeeper in Rainbow Centre told The Express Tribune.

Ghaffar’s murder sparked tension in the area and shopkeepers in the area closed down their shops in protest. His funeral prayers were offered at Zuhr at a mosque in Kharadar. Mourners staged a protest and demanded arrests of the culprits.

The office of the Peoples Aman Committee was also reportedly set on fire during the protest. While SP Sehar told The Express Tribune that the crowd only attacked the office and broke a board there, the committee confirmed that it had been attacked and set on fire. Shakeeb Baloch, the president of the Peoples Aman Committee’s central secretariat, categorically denied any involvement in the case. Another source claimed that tension did spark in Kharadar but it was over a “misunderstanding”.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2011.