Busy day for target killers
At least four people, including a Crime Investigation Department (CID) head constable and a Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) unit incharge were gunned down in target killings in different parts of the metropolis on Tuesday.
A CID head constable was shot dead near P&T Society. Korangi Industrial Area Police Station SP Manzoor Khatyan said 50-year-old Syed Izharul Hassan Bukhari was on his motorcycle when unidentified armed men opened indiscriminate fire at him, killing him instantly. He sustained four bullet wounds, Khatyan said.
The victim worked under the supervision of CID SSP Chaudhry Aslam Khan, who told The Express Tribune that the reason behind the killing is yet to be known. “Apparently, he went out to meet some friends in Korangi and was killed on his way,” he said. The victim was the resident of PECHS Block 6. No case was registered till the filing of this story.
Similarly, an MQM activist was shot dead in Ali Akbar Shah Goth. The Ibrahim Hyderi police said that Muhammad Yaqub, 45, was sitting outside his house when unidentified assailants in a white vehicle opened fire at him and escaped.
Yaqub was recently appointed as the unit incharge of the MQM in the area. He was a security guard and also owned a taxi. His body was taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre. Soon after the news of his murder spread, shops were closed down in the goth and other neighbouring areas. MQM workers reached the JPMC and shouted slogans against the police for failing to curb target killings. Yaqub is survived by a wife and four children. He is the second MQM unit incharge to be killed in the area.
A month ago, another MQM unit incharge of the same area, Jaffer Bengali was killed.
Separately, the police found bodies of two unidentified young men near Government Gulshan College, block-7, Gulshan-e-Iqbal. SSP Abdullah Sheikh said that the victims are believed to be in their late teens. Both the youngsters had been killed execution-style. “Their hands and feet were tied and they were shot in the head,” the SSP explained.
“Before getting rid of the bodies, the suspects first resorted to aerial firing,” said a police official of the area. “The two victims appeared to be hailing from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa or Chitral and had been abducted before they were killed.”
Published in The Express Tribune, August 25th, 2010.