KARACHI: Four policemen were gunned down in Karachi’s SITE area on Friday in what appeared to be an incident of target killing, officials said. SITE Station House Officer (SHO) Rana Maqsood said the policemen were having iftar at a hotel located between Siemens Chowk and Habib Bank Chowrangi when three unidentified persons on two motorbikes opened fire on them.
The police officers ? Assitant Sub-Inspector Muhammad Yousuf, and police constables Shabir, Khalid and Israr ? died on the spot while the suspects escaped. Senior Superintendent Police (SSP) West Nasir Aftab was also at the site of the attack but managed to escape alive. Maqsood claimed that the assailants belonged to a ‘defunct terrorist organisation’.
While the bodies were shifted to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, police and Rangers reached the incident site, and cordoned the area. More than a dozen empty shells of pistols were recovered from the scene. In a separate incident in the metropolis’s Ibrahim Haideri area, two policemen were injured when they were shot on Friday evening.
Officers Kamal Deen and Rahim Bux were injured in the second targeted shooting incident on police within the span of a few hours. The incident came hours after a suicide car bomber killed at least 25 people, including seven police officers, in Quetta. Speaking to media personnel, Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah took notice of the incidents and said, “We will not let the spilled blood of our policemen go in vain.”
Published in Daily Times, June 24th, 2017.
