QUETTA, June 1: Professor Ghulam Hussain Saba Dashtiari of Balochistan University was gunned down in Sariab area on Wednesday.

“Saba Dashtiari was hit by three bullets and died on the spot,” police said. He had been with the university for 31 years.

According to sources, Prof Dashtiari was walking with a student when masked men on a motorcycle shot him in front of the Helper Eye Hospital and escaped. The place is about 500 metres from the Sariab police station.

Police took the body to the Civil Hospital where a large number of students gathered and protested against the murder. After autopsy, the body was handed over to relatives who took it to Karachi for burial.

A man identifying himself as Saifullah, spokesman for the Ansarul Islam group, called the Quetta Press Club and claimed responsibility for the attack.

Prof Dashtiari was the third professor of Balochistan University to be shot dead.

Prof Saba Dashtiari was born in Karachi’s Lyari area in 1956. He did his matriculation from the Okhai Memon High School. He did his graduation and post-graduation in Karachi as a private student. He held master’s degrees in Islamic studies and philosophy.

He started his career as a teacher in Haji Abdullah Haroon School in Karachi. He later joined the University of Balochistan as a lecturer in the department of Islamic studies. He authored 24 books, first of which was on Islam and philosophy. He was also a poet and regularly attended literary functions.

Family sources said that the funeral prayers would be held in Lyari and he would be buried in Mewashah graveyard at 11am on Thursday.