KARACHI, Feb 3: Investigations into various cases of targeted killings in the city have revealed that three particular types of 9mm pistols have been used in more than 100 killings during 2012.

Sources privy to findings of Sindh police’s forensic division told Dawn on Sunday that the division had recently compiled its 2012 report which revealed that in most cases people were targeted with three types of 9mm pistols. The victims belonged to all sects and political parties besides a fair number of officials of law-enforcement agencies.

“In 2012, investigators of the forensic division examined 107 crime scenes and collected pieces of evidence which mainly included casings of spent bullets,” said an official.

The findings came as a reminder of Sindh IG Fayyaz Ahmed Leghari’s statement he gave in December 2012 that he suspected the involvement of a ‘third force’ in Karachi bloodshed on the basis of forensic examination in a number of killings which were earlier suspected to be motivated by sectarianism.

The official said the forensic division examined 5,203 empties (spent bullet casings) used in different crimes during 2012 which were sent to it by different units of Karachi police, including the crime investigation department (CID), special investigation unit (SIU), anti-violent crime cell (AVCC) and investigation arms of all three zones — east, west and south.

“A latest state-of-the-art digital laboratory, which has been recently set up, is greatly helpful to the investigators in determining key facts about different arms being used in the city,” he added.

Violence revisited the city during the second quarter of 2012 with a series of killings and targeted attacks which appeared to be sectarian-motivated after a gap of a few months when Karachi appeared to be returning to normality in the wake of the Supreme Court’s suo motu notice of targeted killings in August 2011.

Many people belonging to the Shia sect, with a significant number of them belonging to the same families, were killed in attacks. Similarly, a fairly large number of men espousing the Sunni sect, including seminary students and teachers, were killed in incidents of firing in different parts of the city.

With little serious efforts by the government to track down attackers and expose their motives, the forensic division has made significant progress in collection and identification of forensic evidence.

“The report further says the division has collected fingerprints of 44,878 suspects of different crimes across the province through its fingerprints identification system during the previous year,” said the official.

“Some 35,629 among them were from Karachi followed by Hyderabad, where fingerprints of 1,836 suspects were collected. The division also helps out the Balochistan police in different cases when it receives a request,” he said.

In total, he said, during 2012 the division conducted investigations into 701 criminal cases, involving murders, robberies, burglaries and carjacking.