By Our Staff Reporter

 KARACHI, Aug 16: A young man was gunned down in Nazimabad on Monday in another incident of killing motivated by sectarianism, which had claimed three lives last week alone, police said.

 Mirza Khadim Hussain was targeted by two men on a motorbike in Nazimabad No 3 while he was walking home after visiting an area shop. The police said he was hit by two bullets — one each in the chest and the head.

The 37-year-old victim was the father of three children.A large number of people later gathered at the victim’s residence. Violence broke out in the area as shots were fired and markets closed.

“It was dark in the area due to load-shedding but witnesses said they saw two men on a motorbike firing at him,” said an official at the Nazimabad police station. “He was rushed to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where he died during treatment. We are not very sure, but apparently sectarian motives are behind the fatal attack.”

The victim was the son of religious scholar Mirza Yousuf Hussain and lived in the same area.Mirza Yousuf Hussain is a senior member of the Majlis-i-Wahdat-i-Muslimeen and prayer leader at Masjid-i-Noor-ul-Iman in Nazimabad 3.

Both the Majlis and the Jafria Alliance of Pakistan condemned the killing, terming it a failure of the security authorities.

“We lost as many as three people in less than a week,” said Allama Hasan Zafar Naqvi of the Majlis-i-Wahdat-i-Muslimeen. “Despite assurances by the authorities and the claims by the police high-ups, the city remains unsafe and the people are being targeted by terrorists without any fear of the law.”