(Corrects name to Qari Mohammad Usman from Qari Mohammad Islam
in paragraph 6)
KARACHI, Jan 31 (Reuters) – A gunman on a motorcycle shot
dead three Pakistani Sunni Muslim leaders on Thursday, police
said, in the latest apparent tit-for-tat killing in the southern
financial hub of Karachi.
Conflict between Sunni and Shi’ite militants has been blamed
for many recent killings in Pakistan’s largest city.
At least 217 people have been killed this month, police
sources say, but they do not know how many qualify as “target
killings”, the official term for assassinations.
“Three persons riding a bike intercepted (the
victims’)vehicle … and one of them shot at persons sitting
inside the car through the window pane,” Deputy Inspector
General of Police Abdul Aleem Jaffry said of the latest
killings, which were caught on CCTV and broadcast on television.
He described them as target killings.
“We have no expectations of getting justice,” said Qari
Mohammad Usman, the Karachi chief of Jamiat-Ulema-e-Islam, one
of the largest Sunni political parties.
“This entire nation, the citizens of Karachi, the students
and clerics are exhausted from carrying the bodies of our elders
… The time is near when we will give a call for everyone to
come out into the streets.”
Interior Minister Rehman Malik told the Senate on Monday: “I
want to alert the people of Pakistan to a possible disaster in
Karachi as three groups have planned large-scale militancy.”
(Reporting by Imtiaz Shah in Karachi, Mubasher Bukhari in
Islamabad and Reuters TV; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by
Ruth Pitchford)
