Target killings : MQM-H 2nd in command gunned down at Tariq Road

Men were returning from a meeting in jail with Afaq Ahmed, whose lawyer was killed in March 2010.


Express April 11, 2011
Target killings : MQM-H 2nd in command gunned down at Tariq Road

KARACHI:


Three political activists and a woman were killed in a drive-by shooting on Monday.


Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiqi (Afaq group) vice-chairman Akhtar Hussain and four MQM-H activists were returning from Central Jail Karachi after visiting party leader Afaq Ahmed when four armed men on motorcycles intercepted them on Tariq Road and opened fire at them. Hussain and another activist were in a Suzuki Cultus, registration number APH-253, while two other workers were on a motorcycle just behind them.

Police maintained that they tried to chase the suspects but in vain.

Hussain and Abdul Kareem, who was a member of the MQM-H Karachi Organising Committee, along with Sohaib. Salman Irshad and Anwar sustained injuries. A passerby, Shamur Nehar, also died in the shooting spree, said Jamshed Town SP Amir Farooqi.

He said that initial investigations indicate that the culprits were following the victims from the jail. “They sprayed the car and the motorcycle with bullets when they stopped at the Tariq Road traffic signal,” he added.

A police team on routine patrol was not far away but they were unable to catch the suspects. The assailants used 9mm and .30 bore pistols. The police also found around 30 empty shells from the crime scene. The victims’ bodies and the injured were taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre. JPMC accident and emergency incharge Dr Seemin Jamali said that two of the injured workers had critical injuries and were admitted while the other one was moved to a private hospital.

Past incidents

In March 2010, Afaq Ahmed’s lawyer, Sohail Anjum, and three others including a taxi driver, were killed in the same area. The lawyer too had been on his way back from visiting Afaq.

MQM-H leader Shamshad Ghouri told The Express Tribune that Hussain and the others had earlier changed their route through the Shaheed-e-Millat road out of security concerns.

They were on their way back home. He accused people from a “rival political party”, who had been tipped off by someone inside the jail for the attack. It was the same line of attack that was followed in Sohail Anjum’s murder, he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 12th,  2011.

COMMENTS (13)

Sultan Ahmed | 13 years ago | Reply Some time i think, when he talk about any loyal general's step in, i feel he is right in his philosophy. Power must be concentrated not in divisions, if it would be in division then result you received in unrest and killing including target killing. Any good general should step in,he is rightly saying, I am hundred percent agree with him(Altaf Hussain) Administrative chain must be consisting on head and subordinate there is success in it ,look back, history is witness.
Sultan Ahmed | 13 years ago | Reply Target killing is continued, it has unleashed in the manner, Agencies,busy imposing peace has,no doubt failed, what is remained there,only the army can control there, it is last and final.
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