Islamabad: Two people were shot dead yesterday in Pakistan's largest city Karachi, raising the death toll to 10 in a new round of targeted killings, police and ambulance service officials said.
According to police, gunmen on motorbikes killed a doctor on his way to his clinic in the city's Nazimabad neighbourhood.
In another hit-and-run shooting, gunmen killed a person belonging to religious group Sunni Tehreek in the area of New Karachi.
Police said the victims of violence over the past three days in some parts of the port city were linked to political and religious bodies.
Tensions
The incidents stoked tension and demonstrations in a number of areas where protesters torched vehicles and blocked traffic by burning tyres on the roads.
Authorities have deployed paramilitary rangers and police in the tense areas to restore normality and around a dozen suspects have been taken into custody.
The capital of the south's Sindh province, ruled by the Pakistan People's Party in coalition with Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has been plagued by a cycle of targeted killings in recent months in various parts of the city.
MQM chief Altaf Hussain said on Friday in a telephone address to a gathering of the students' wing of the party in Karachi from London that the acts of violence were aimed at fanning sectarian tensions.
He urged people to foil the nefarious designs by maintaining peace.
Sindh Home Minister Dr Zulfikar Ali Mirza vowed that no leniency would be shown to banned outfits and those spreading religious hatred. He disclosed that he had been threatened for refusing to grant permission to a defunct religious organisation to hold a meeting.
"I am among those who play on the front foot and not on the back foot," he declared while adressing the post-budget press conference of Chief Minister Syed Qaimi Ali Shah at Chief Minister House yesterday.
— With inputs from agencies
