KARACHI, July 16: A prayer leader was among the eight people shot dead in separate incidents in different parts of the city while a Rangers soldier was among the two men wounded in a separate gun attacks on Monday.

Police said that 60-year-old prayer leader Afnan Baloch was found wounded in a mosque, Jamia Masjid Usman, in Manghopir’s area of Sultanabad, where people coming to offer Fajr prayer found him lying in the courtyard of the mosque with a gunshot wound in the head.

He was taken to a nearby private hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival, the police added. Later his body was shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for medico-legal formalities by the police.

The area SHO said that the killing could be related to a continuing land dispute in the area.

He said that the mosque was said to be built on a disputed plot. The officer ruled out the possibility of any sectarian motive for the killing.

A member of the Tableeghi Jamaat was gunned down within the remit of the Manghopir police station on Monday, the police said.

They said that 35-year-old Ilyas Khan Mehsud was killed and his 34-year-old companion Abdul Hakeem was wounded when gunmen on motorcycles targeted them near Frontier Colony when the two men were returning from a religious congregation.

The police took the body to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for medico-legal formalities.

A cable operator was shot dead in his house in Baldia Town early on Monday, police said.

They said that unidentified gunmen barged into the house of Mubarak alias Langra in Baldia sector 5½ in Madina Colony and shot him dead and fled after the firing.

The police said that the deceased had a dispute with a rival cable operator and the killing could be related to the rivalry between them.

A former councillor and scrap dealer was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Azizabad on Monday, police said.

They said that 45-year-old Hanif was sitting at his shop in F.B. Area No.3 in Kutiyana Mohallah where two men on a motorcycle came and opened fire on him and fled.

The victim was taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

The police said that the deceased was also a former councillor during the tenure of former city nazim Naimatullah Khan and had contested the polls independently.

The police were not immediately sure about the motive for the killing.

A woman was killed in a passenger coach, Mashriq-4, when a stray bullet hit her near Cattle Colony on Monday night, police said.

The Sukkan police station SHO Sarfaraz Zai said that at the time of the incident there was a loadshedding in the area.

The victim was taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre where she was pronounced dead on arrival, the SHO added.

The identity of the woman could not be ascertained yet, the SHO added.

Two young friends were found shot dead at different places on M.A. Jinnah Road on Monday, police said.

They said that 32-year-old Abdul Sattar was found dead near the Tibat Centre within the remit of the Preedy police while the body of his friend identified as Mohammad Anees, 27, was found near the City Courts.

The police said that both the victims lived in Shanti Nagar in the Dalmia area.

The officials believed that both victims were first kidnapped and later they were tortured and shot dead and their bodies dumped at different places. The police have so far failed to ascertain the motive for their killings.

The body of an unidentified man was found in Nayabad in Lyari on Monday night.

The body was taken to the Civil Hospital Karachi by police.

A Rangers soldier was wounded in a firing incident in Ramaswami in the old city area late on Monday.

Soldier Sheikh Nasir, son of Habib, was taken to the Civil Hospital.

Hospital sources said that the wounded soldier was in a serious condition.