Common people targeted as violence flares
KARACHI, At least 30 people were found shot dead mainly in south and west districts of the city on Thursday, most of them police said were kidnapped before being tortured and shot in a renewed wave of violence that mostly targeted daily wage-earners and common men.
Apart from bullet-riddled bodies, mostly found stuffed in gunny bags, an armed clash between two groups in New Karachi and a gun attack in North Nazimabad left three people dead and another wounded. The city police chief saw ‘ethnic colour’ in the brutal trend and blamed criminal gangs from both sides targeting people on ethnic grounds.
In the early hours of the day, three men were found shot dead in Sector 19-D of Baldia Town. One of them was identified as Liaquat Zafar Farooqi, a fire officer employed at the Lyari fire station situated in the Meeran Naka area.
“The bodies were found near Sabri Masjid,” said an official at the Baldia Town police station. “The other victim was identified as 57-year-old Azeemullah. Fire officer Liaquat was kidnapped on Wednesday evening along with his colleague Irfan. Irfan was later found badly wounded in another area.”
An hour later two bodies stuffed in gunny bags were found near the zoological garden. An official at the Solider Bazaar police station said the bullet-riddled bodies of the young men with their throats slit were found along the walls of the zoo.
“One of the victims was identified as Noman, a Baldia Town resident. The other one remained unidentified,” added the official.
Within the next couple of hours, seven bodies of young men were found in two different areas that came as a rude shock both
to area people and the law-enforcers. In the first incident, the police found the three gunny bags stuffed with bodies lying in the Kakri Ground in Lyari on Nawab Muhammad Road.
“The victims were identified as Rao Nasir, Zubair Waheed and Junaid Islam. They were residents of Sector 10 of Orangi Town.
They were employed at shops in the Kharadar area and we firmly believe that they were kidnapped late Wednesday night
while returning home,” said an official at the Baghdadi police station.
Almost the same scene was witnessed in Shershah, where a pickup (CP-5584) was found abandoned near Pankha Hotel. The vehicle was carrying four blood-stained gunny bags in which the police found bodies.
“The victims were identified as Mudassir Ghayyur, Javed Jameel, Imran Sattar and an unidentified man. The three persons worked for a cellphone company and were on a regular technical assignment in Lyari area on Wednesday when they went missing,” said an official at the Shershah police station, adding that the victims were New Karachi residents.
There was no end to the trend, as even after sunrise the volunteers of the charity organisations kept transporting bodies stuffed in gunny bags to the mortuary mainly of the Civil Hospital Karachi from different areas. In an early morning incident the bodies of two young friends were found in gunny bags in Agra Taj Colony.
“The bags were spotted on Mirza Adam Khan Road. Hands and legs of the two victims were tied with ropes and there were also visible marks of torture on their bodies. Both victims in their mid-20s remained unidentified,” said an official at the Kalri police station.
Two more bags carrying bodies were found along the railway tracks near the Wazir Mansion station. An official at the City Railways police station said the victims were identified as Zeeshan Iqbal and Shahzeb Faisal.
“The two were friends and residents of a New Karachi locality. They had come to see Zeeshan’s maternal uncle on Wednesday evening in a car and went missing while returning home in the night,” he added.
In Sector 7 of Saeedabad two men were found shot dead. The bodies of 48-year-old Abdul Waheed and 22-year-old Zubairuddin were dumped in Dawood Goth after being stuffed in gunny bags. Both were residents of Sector 12 of Baldia Town.
Another young man, later identified as Muhammad Yasir, was found shot in the same circumstances again in Saeedabad near Shahra-i-Waqas. The 26-year-old victim was a resident of Sector 5-J of Baldia Town.
A head constable of the city police was found shot dad in the SITE area. An official at the SITE-B police station said 37-year-old Muhammad Ejaz was found shot dead near an industrial unit.
“Shot twice, he had been badly tortured. He was posted as the head constable at the New Town police station and lived in the Garden police lines. He was the father of four,” he added.
A gunny bag-stuffed body was also found in Lasbella.
A Rizvia police station official said the body of an unknown victim was found under the Lasbella bridge near Shahjehanabad. Similarly, a 52-year-old man found shot dead in the Manghpir area along the Northern Bypass.
“The victim has been identified as Nabi Bakhsh and resident of the nearby Ali Muhammad Goth,” said an official at the Manghopir police station. A young man remained unidentified whose gunny bag-stuffed body was found near Fatima Jinnah
College on Chand Bibi Road within the remit of the Nabi Bux police station.
The same was the case of another body found within the remit of the SITE-B police station, who remained unidentified.
In Orangi Town, a young man recently released from prison was found shot dead. An Orangi Town police official said Javed Baloch alias Crazy was found shot dead in Sector 8-L of Orangi near the Qatar Hospital.
In New Karachi armed clash between two groups left two young men dead. One of the victims was an activist of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan.
“The firing incident was witnessed in Sector 11-G. The firing left Dastageer Ahmed and Taufeeq Hussain killed,” said an official at the Taimuria police station.
The spokesman for the JUP said Dastageer was a party worker.Similarly, a rickshaw driver was gunned down in Block S, North Nazimabad. An official at the Shahrah-i-Noor Jehan police station said 42-year-old Abdul Rasheed had sustained five bullet wounds fired by gunmen riding a motorbike.
After few hours lull, armed attacks reemerged in the night. Within the remit of the Gulistan-i-Jauhar police station, 28-year-old Ghulam Shabbir was gunned down by motorcycle riders near his home in Hussain Hazara Goth.
In New Karachi Sector 11-D, a paan shop-owner was gunned when he was busy in his regular work. A spokesman for the Pakistan People’s Party condemned the incident saying 40-year-old victim Muhammad Younus was a PPP worker.
Intense firing in Sherpao Colony of Landhi left a young man dead and over a dozen injured, including women and a six-year-old boy. An official at the Quaidabad police station said the dead had been identified as Muhammad Qasim while all the injured were shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for treatment.
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Sharp rise in roadside dumping of bodies
KARACHI: An alarming increase in the dumping of corpses by the roadside in different parts of the city has been witnessed this year, said police and rescue workers.
The phenomenon common in the 1990s seems to have returned with the mere difference that plastic bags have replaced the old jute bags, which were used to dump bodies then.
Often the bodies that initially remained unidentified had torture marks or gunshot wounds, police and hospital sources said.
While the killings and the subsequent dumping of bodies became more frequent during the bouts of political or ethnic violence, their occurrence did not stop even during relatively peaceful days, law-enforcement officials said.
According to police records, 1,241 people were killed during the last seven months in the city, while last year the metropolis had witnessed a total of 1,339 killings.
“Yes, there is a sharp surge in the number of bodies being found every day in the city,” said Anwer Kazmi, a senior official of the Edhi Foundation. He added the occurrence had increased many times this year.
Initially these bodies remained unidentified but once legal formalities were completed they were shifted to the Edhi morgue where families turned up and identified the bodies of their loved ones in most cases, he explained.
The senior functionary of the country`s largest charity said: “On a daily average, two bodies were found lying abandoned in different parts of the city this year.”
The last month, however, was an exception with more than 300 killings in different localities of the metropolis, he added.
Mr Kazmi said the morgue mostly remained full to capacity these days, bearing evidence of the recent rise in the number of bodies found stuffed in gunny bags and dumped by the roadside.
A rescue worker said that most of the bodies found stuffed in gunny bags bore torture marks or a gunshot wound. “It has been noticed that the bodies recovered from gunny bags often had a single bullet in the head that caused the death,” said a medico-legal officer of the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre.
Ramzan Chippa, the patron of what can be described as the city’s second largest ambulance network, also acknowledged the fact that the phenomenon had increased sharply during the current year.
The number of bodies being found in the city had increased in recent months, he said.
ganjaa!
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