KARACHI, Nov 30: A police constable was shot dead near University Road, while a free-will couple was slaughtered inside their home in Saeedabad on Saturday, officials said.

They said 42-year-old head constable Shah Mohammad was attacked when he was driving home near Safoora Chowrangi. Hit by eight bullets, he died on the spot.

“The victim was posted at the crime branch,” said DSP Khalid Khan, the area’s subdivisional police officer. “He was returning home in the Sachal area when came under attack by armed motorcyclists, who used a 9mm pistol in the shooting.

Though the police were not sure about the exact motive for the attack, they suspected it was part of the ongoing wave of policemen’s killing, which has claimed more than 150 lives this year alone.

“The family denies the victim’s enmity with any individual or group. So we have reasons to suspect a local criminal group being behind the killings and have made a little success to get some clues on these lines,” said the DSP.

In Saeedabad, a free-will couple was slaughtered inside their home allegedly by their family members in the name of honour, police said.

They said Naqeebullah and Sara, both in their early 20s, had settled in Saeedabad after fleeing their ancestral town in Dera Ismail Khan for the last two months.

“Both wanted to marry each other but their family resisted and they decided to settle in Karachi,” said Inspector Sagheer Hussain Mugheri, the Saeedabad SHO. “The two families were looking for them and finally traced their location last week. Initial investigations suggest that the two sides held a Jirga and allowed their marriage and agreed to compromise.”

However, he said, it was only a kind of trap by the girl’s family to get access to her home. On Saturday morning, Inspector Mugheri said, the girl’s father stormed into their home in Sector 14-A with his two sons and slaughtered the couple one by one.

“There is no eyewitness to the act of slaughtering but the evidences we have collected and the statements of other witnesses or neighbours helped us connect the dots. The bodies of the victims were shifted to the Civil Hospital Karachi and we would further move in line with the defined laws after medico-legal formalities,” added the SHO.