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Ex-Muttahida MPA's brother shot dead in Shershah market attack
 [Dawn] A trader was bumped off and his younger brother maimed at their shop in the Shershah scrap market on Tuesday, police said.They said that the gun attack took place at around 1.15pm when two men came to the shop on a cycle of violence. "The employees at the shop were told to move away by the assailants, who fired at the two brothers and rode away," said a police brass hat. The maimed men were rushed to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where Karrar Ali, 60, was pronounced dead on arrival while his younger brother Zakir Ali, 42, was admitted for treatment. Both men were elder brothers of Shakir Ali, a former member of the Sindh Assembly belonging to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement ...English: United National Movement, generally known as MQM, is the 3rd largest political party and the largest secular political party in Pakistain with particular strength in Sindh. From 1992 to 1999, the MQM was the target of the Pak Army's Operation Cleanup leaving thousands of urdu speaking civilians dead... The police said that spent bullet casings found at the scene of the crime suggested that a 9mm pistol had been used in the killing. "The incident is not related to extortion. It was an act of assassination," said SSP-West Amir Farooqui. A large number of MQM activists and party leaders reached the hospital after getting the news of the attack. The Shershah scrap market was shut in protest over the killing. Some markets in central district were also shut when news of the killing spread in the city. The police said that the elder brother Karrar had been in the metal sheets business for the past 45 years in the same market. The slain trader was a resident of F.B Area's Block 13 and a father of four. Shershah market president Malick Zahid Dehlavi said that the gun attack was mounted at a shop not far from the Jehanabad police post. Following the October 2010 Shershah carnage, 164 coppers were deployed in the market for security but currently their number had come down to 64, he added. "At the time of the killing, two coppers along with a police mobile van were present at a police post in the market but they didn't do anything," he said. In October 2010, 14 men were mowed down and nearly a dozen others were maimed when armed assailants targeted shopkeepers in the automotive section of the Shershah scrap market. Since then, most of the businesses had been relocated to different parts of the city, said another office-bearer of the market association. Posted by: Fred 2012-06-14 |
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