Three activists gunned down

Suspects wearing police uniforms ambushed the taxi in Landhi.

KARACHI:

Three men disguised as policemen shot dead on Thursday three leaders of the Mohajir Quami Movement-Haqiqi (MQM-H), including the party's vice chairperson, Zafar Khan Qaimkhani.

Forty-eight-year-old Qaimkhani, along with the party's information secretary, Aleem Ahmed Khan, and central leader, Abdul Qadir Jilani, were killed in a black-and-yellow taxi as it slowed down near a petrol pump in Landhi's Mansehra Colony. The driver, Niaz Muhammad, also came under attack and died. The men succumbed to their injuries on their way to Jinnah hospital.

"The incident was over within a minute," said a police official, adding that the three suspects intercepted the car and shot at the passengers using 9mm pistols. He added that the incident was "clearly a political attack".

Qaimkhani was at the top of MQM-H's hierarchy, second to only Afaq Ahmed, the party's chairperson. He had been with the party since it was formed back in 1984. Qaimkhani was incharge of the party's Malir sector till 2002 and was appointed the vice chairperson after his predecessor, Akhtar Hussain, was shot dead in April last year in a similar attack.

He also spent one year in jail following the crackdown on MQM-H.

As relatives and activists gathered at the Jinnah morgue, where the bodies were being kept for medico-legal formalities, the fury among the party's activists was obvious.

Afaq came to the morgue in one of the police's armoured personnel carriers. "We all know why the police cannot do much [to give us protection]," he said. "Around 9,000 of our workers and leaders have been killed over the years."

According to the party, over 100 MQM-H activists have been killed since Afaq was released from jail in December last year.



He has since then moved his home to DHA from Landhi after receiving threats. At the Jinnah morgue, which was surrounded by the police and a mass of journalists, only two dozen of the party's activists showed up. "We are on our toes all the time. Anything can happen at any time," said one worker.

Khalid Naqshbandi, an MQM-H spokesperson, said that most of the party leaders and workers are in hiding. "We are targeted everywhere. Our jobs and businesses have been taken away and now they are after our lives."

Man, wife killed in Gulshan-e-Iqbal

A man and his wife were killed on Thursday as they were leaving home for work. The police said Iqbal Hussain and his wife, Dilshad Fatima, were shot dead in their car in Gulshan-e-Iqbal's Teachers Society.

Hussain was a receptionist at a hospital, where his wife also worked as a technician.

SHO Sachal Azhar Iqbal said he did not know the motive behind the killing. "Two men riding a motorcycle fired multiple shots at them," said another police official.



Though the police officer said the two victims were not doctors, the medical fraternity was quick to react. Both Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) and Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA) condemned the murder of the 'doctors'.

The killings come just days after Nisar Sehto, the resident medical officer of the Lyari General Hospital, was shot dead in Saddar. Law enforcers are speculating that the incident might have been a sectarian attack.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 30^th, 2012.