KARACHI: The so-called peace march by different parties in the city’s affluent neighborhood has failed to bring about any positive change in the city as at least nine more people were shot dead and dozens others wounded in violent incidents on Sunday.
As the police and Rangers continued to stay away from the strife-hit localities, Surjani Town became the most-affected locality of the city where armed men held people hostage and killed at least five persons in separate incidents.
West Zone DIG Imran Yaqoob Minhas told a television channel that the police could not enter the area due to heavy gunfire between two groups.
Bodies of two men were found in a car in Surjani Town’s Sector 7 on Sunday. The police said that the bodies bore multiple bullet wounds.
A duty officer at the Surjani Town police station said that the victims used to sell kerosene on a wheelbarrow in the area. They were identified as Sajjad Khan and Bacha Khan.
However, a spokesperson for the Awami National Party claimed that the two men were associated with the party’s Ajmer Nagri ward.
The police said that apparently they were kidnapped and shot dead before their bodies were dumped in Sector 7.
In another incident in the same area, gunmen shot dead another man, identified as Tahir Khan.
The ANP also claimed that victim Tahir was their worker.
Tension gripped parts of Surjani Town where armed groups traded fire in Khuda Ki Basti and Taiser Town. The poor law and order situation forced shopkeepers to closedown their businesses, while residents remained indoors.
The Surjani Town police also found two more bodies, which could not be identified till late in the night.
Armed men set a vehicle, two shops, a roadside food outlet and nearly half-a-dozen push carts on fire within the remit of the Surjani Town police station. A marriage hall was also set on fire in the area.
The police said that armed men also tried to set ablaze an area office of the Punjabi-Pakhtun Organizing Committee.
However, SSP West Asif Ejaz claimed that a suspect was arrested and the police also recovered two repeater guns, one sub-machine gun, one MP-5 rifle and a 9mm pistol from his house in Surjani Town.
He claimed that in another raid four more suspects were rounded up in a house.
Two men were gunned down in Orangi Town on Sunday, police said.
They said that the body of a young man, later identified as 22-year-old Zurmai Jan, was found within the remit of the Pakistan Bazaar police station. They said that the victim was a rag picker and was shot dead by unidentified persons in Orangi Town’s Sector 13-A.
The body of another man was also found within the remit of the Pakistan Bazaar police station. The victim could not be identified till late night, the police said, adding that both the victims sustained multiple bullet wounds and were killed after being kidnapped.
Unidentified men threw the body of a young man from a moving car near Urdu Bazaar on M.A. Jinnah Road on Sunday evening.
The police said that victim was in his late-twenties and was shot in the head.
They said that the body was shifted to the Civil Hospital Karachi for a post-mortem examination.
Another unidentified body was found in the Lyari River within the remit of the Shershah police station.
The area SHO said that the victim was in his thirties. The body bore torture marks.
The police shifted the body to the CHK for legal formalities.
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