[VOA] A Pakistani activist who ran the Second Floor cafe was gunned down late Friday by unknown gunmen in Karachi. Sabeen Mahmud and her mother were returning home from the cafe when they were attacked in her car. She died on en route to the hospital. Her mother, who was also shot, remains in critical condition.Senior police official Tariq Dharejo said, "Two gunmen on a motorcycle shot her," adding that police were investigating the murder.
Conceived as a bookstore and cafe patterned after the old coffeehouse culture of Lahore and Karachi, Mahmud's cafe says on its website that it came from a desire to enact transformational change in urban Pakistani society.
Earlier that day, Mahmud had hosted an event there about rights abuses in Baluchistan province, featuring two prominent Baluch activists, Mama Abdul Qadeer and Farzana Baluch, as well as others. The talk was to have been held earlier this month at a university in Lahore, but officials blocked it.