KARACHI, Nov 7 Nisar Baloch, an intrepid social and political activist of trans-Lyari area, was gunned down in the Pakistan Quarters area on Saturday.

He had been vigorously campaigning against encroachments on the prime land of Gutter Baghicha, repeatedly pointing an accusing finger at several influential persons for their involvement in the scam.

The 45-year-old activist was intercepted and targeted on the Pak Colony bridge by at least three gunmen riding two motorbikes, police said.

He had addressed a press conference on Friday at the Karachi Press Club demanding that the Chief Justice of Pakistan take notice of the encroachments on parks and amenity plots allegedly by political groups in the coalition government.

“At around 10.15am, he was riding over the Pak Colony bridge, when he was first forced to stop the motorcycle by another motorcyclist,” said Inspector Irfan Meo, SHO of the Soldier Bazaar police station. “As he slowed down, another motorcyclist carrying two gunmen came close and fired multiple shots at the victim.”

Though the indiscriminate firing also hit two passers-by, 35-year-old Farooq Abdullah and 40-year-old Muhammad Yousuf, Nisar was wounded critically. He, however, kept riding the motorbike till he finally fell down on the edge of the bridge.

“He was rushed to the Civil Hospital Karachi by the people around, but he died before reaching the health facility,” said Inspector Meo. “The attackers used TT pistols and were riding 125cc and 70cc motorbikes, as we were told by some eyewitnesses. A few casings of spent bullets were also found at the crime-scene.”

Doctors at the medico-legal section of the Civil Hospital Karachi found four bullets - two each in the face and the head - that hit Nisar Baloch. They said the wounds suggested that the victim was fired upon from a very close range.

The daylight murder of Nisar Baloch sparked anger and grief in his residential area, Old Golimar, and adjoining neighbourhoods, where he was respected for his social services. From campaigns against encroachment to setting up educational institutions, including computer training centres in poor neighbourhoods, Nisar had been actively engaged in bringing mainly issues of the trans-Lyari area in the limelight for more than two decades.

“It was Nisar's campaign that forced the authorities in 2001 to cancel the allotments of the 10-acre piece of Gutter Baghicha, manoeuvred by a few officers of the KMC in 1993 for a cooperative housing society,” said Nasir Karim Baloch, his close aide. He was a household name mainly in Baloch-populated area of the city and was heading the Karachi-based Baloch Rights Council.

Nisar, who resigned as a government schoolteacher in the early 1980s, started campaigning in partnership with different non-government organisations to set up schools and literacy centres. Dozens of such facilities were set up mainly in the Lyari, Pak Colony and Old Golimar areas.

He was jailed some eight years back without any charges and kept detained in the Malir prison for several days allegedly by the then senior bureaucrats for exposing their alleged roles in the encroachment on the government land. Recently he recharged his campaign against political parties in the coalition government for their alleged illegal activities on amenity plots.

“He addressed a press conference only yesterday (Friday) on the same issue,” said Ahmed Nawaz, one of Nisar's friends. “He appealed to the chief justice to take suo motu notice of this issue. He was under persistent life threat and met the violent end today many had been fearing for long.”

The Soldier Bazaar police station meanwhile registered a case (FIR 331/2009) under Sections 302 (premeditated murder), 324 (attempt to commit qatl-i-amd) and 34 (with common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code against unknown attackers on the complaint of his paternal cousin.

Nisar Baloch left a widow and a two-year-old son.