KARACHI: Four soldiers of paramilitary Rangers were killed in an attack on their vehicle and picket outside a mosque in Ittehad Town after Friday prayers in the deadliest assault in recent months on the force engaged in a targeted operation against criminals in the city since September 2013.

According to Karachi-West Deputy Inspector General of Police Feroze Shah, two of the soldiers were at the picket and the other two were in the vehicle when three men opened fire on them and sped away on their motorcycle.

They suffered severe injuries and were taken to the nearby Murshid Hospital where Ishtiaq, Akhter and Qasim died.

The fourth victim, Shahadat Ali, was shifted to the Civil Hospital with two bullet wounds in his head, Senior Medico-Legal Officer Dr Qarar Ahmed said. He was later sent to another hospital where he died.

All the bodies were taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for post-mortem. “Three personnel had suffered multiple bullet wounds in head and neck and one in the abdomen,” Additional Police Surgeon Dr Rohina Hasan said.

The Rangers were attac­ked when people were coming out from a large seminary-cum-mosque, Abu Hur­a­ira, after Friday pra­yers, a police official said. The picket was at a place about 50 yards from the mosque. They were attacked from a close range and they did not get a chance to fire back.

“They were deployed for security of worshippers during Friday prayers,” Pakistan Rangers, Sindh, Director General Maj Gen Bilal Akbar was quoted by TV channels as saying.

“The attackers may have wanted to attack the mosque,” the officer said, adding that the incident was being investigated.

DIG Feroze Shah said a joint investigation team comprising police and Rangers officers had been set up.

Investigators said at night that they had made significant progress about the group involved in the attack.

Police’s Counter-Terrorism Department official Raja Umer Khattab, who is a member of the investigation team, told Dawn that five spent bullets fired from two 0.9mm pistols had been found at the crime scene.

“Police’s forensic lab revealed that the same weapons had been used to murder at least 10 people in the city during the past two years,” he said.

The pistols were used to kill Dr Murad in Orangi Town, Police Constable Tanveer in Ittehad Town and the Awami National Party’s workers Ashraf Khan and Saifullah in Mominabad and Ittehad Town.

Raja Umer said the investigators suspected involvement in the attack of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban (Swat group) that had killed several ANP workers and occupied their offices in Karachi since the launching of the security forces’ operation against them in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa when the party ruled the province.

The investigator said the militant group appeared to have become active again last year and attacked people on sectarian grounds and killed policemen and ANP workers. They continued their activities till January. Since then this group has remained inactive but the fresh attack suggests that they have become ‘active’ again.

The CTD official said the killers also took away the submachine gun of a soldier they had killed.

He said the attackers had parked their motorbike near the Rangers picket and shot them in the head from a close range.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah talked to the Rangers DG and sought details of the incident. He announced a Rs2 million compensation for each of the deceased, the chief minister’s spokesperson said.

“The sacrifices of the Rangers personnel will not go in vain,” Mr Shah said.

“The martyred soldiers were deployed for security of worshippers during Friday prayers.”

Mr Shah also talked to provincial police chief Ghulam Hyder Jamali and asked him to ensure arrest of the killers.

PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that “the cowardly terrorist attack was an attempt to demoralise the law-enforcing agencies but the soldiers fighting the terrorists are Pakistan’s loyal sons and they will eventually wipe out” terrorism from the entire country.

He expressed sympathies with the families of the deceased and said he understood their pain because he himself had lost his mother to terrorism.

“The terrorists are on the rampage and they won’t be spared,” the PPP leader said.

Published in Dawn, November 21st, 2015