Lawyer shot dead in Karachi

Advocate Haider was gunned down after he had left his home in Martin Quarters. Motive for attack unclear.

KARACHI: Just as two doctors had been shot dead in Karachi in two days, two lawyers have now been target killed in as many days in Karachi with Advocate Syed Ghulam Haider being gunned down near his residence in Martin Quarters on Friday evening.

ASP Akhtar Farooq told The Express Tribune that Advocate Haider had just left his residence to attend a congregation at Shah Najaf Imambargah when two armed assailants on a motorcycle opened fire at his car.

Advocate Haider, who worked for the office of the federal ombudsman, died on the spot while his assailants managed to escape. Police said they found four 9mm caliber bullet casings from the crime scene.

It was not immediately clear why Haider had been attacked.

National Accountability Bureua (NAB) official Hafiz Muhammad Irfan while condemning the act clarified that Advocate Haider did not work for NAB. Rather, he worked for the Federal Insurance Ombudsman Azhar Farooqui whose office was located in the same complex as the NAB Sindh office.

“Lawyers have reluctantly gone on strike for a third consecutive day as the government has left us with no other option,” Karachi Bar Association President Barrister Salahuddin Ahmed said, referring to the recent target killing of lawyers.

Pakistan Bar Council vice chairperson Chaudhry Ramzan announced a country wide strike on Saturday over the killing of Haider.

Karachi has recently seen a rise in the incidence of target killings.

On April 10, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) lawyers forum vice-president Syed Waqarul Hassan Shah was shot dead on Rashid Minhas Road. A police report on Friday said that the same culprits were behind the April 9 attack on a doctor in Karachi.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly noted that Advocate Haider worked for NAB. The error is regretted.