Six people, including a Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) activist and two policemen, were murdered in the city, police said on Sunday.

The body of 40-year-old Abdul Ghani Soomro, an activist of the MQM’s Lyari Sector, was found near the ICI Bridge in Lyari.

Baghdadi SHO Ghulam Nabi Afridi said the body was shifted to the Civil Hospital Karachi and after a postmortem, moved to the Edhi morgue.

During investigations, a family approached the police and identified the body with the help of photographs. Soomro was a resident of Hajiyani Amna Manzil in the Khadda Market area of Lyari.

The family told the police that at about 11:45pm on Saturday night, Soomro was abducted by some men on a motorcycle outside his house.

The SHO said the victim was brutally tortured and his neck was slit with a sharp object. The abductors later shot him and dumped his body at about 3am.

The police officer said besides being a political activist, the deceased also worked as a real estate agent.

He added that the murder appeared to be a target killing case, but other angles would be probed too.

The victim’s family and neighbours staged a protest outside the Baghdadi police station, alleging that Lyari’s gangsters had murdered him.

They dispersed after the police lodged an FIR and assured them that the murderers would be arrested.

Separately, two bullet-riddled bodies were found in bushes near the water filter plant of Sultanabad Housing Society in Manghopir.

Sub-Divisional Police Officer Jawed Abbas of the Manghopir Division said the bodies were shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital (ASH). The police aired a message on their control system, but no one had approached them for identifying the two men or filed a missing person complaint by the time this report was filed.

The police officer said the two men apparently hailed from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He added that though the double murder seemed to be part of the ongoing target killing spree, it was premature to establish the motive and the situation would become clear after the victims were identified.

Another bullet-riddled body was found near Lyari River in the Old Dhobi Ghat area of Pak Colony.

An autopsy at the ASH revealed that the body was about two or three days old. The victim was tortured before being shot. Three bullet wounds were found on the upper torso. However, the identity of the victim could not be ascertained.

Meanwhile in a late night development, Sub-Inspector Wazeer Ali and Constable Rashid Ali were gunned down near the Amma Park in New Karachi.

SSP Noman Siddiqi of District Central said that the sub-inspector and the constable were posted at the Sir Syed police station and deployed for snap checking in the aforementioned area. Unidentified men arrived at the scene and sprayed the two policemen with bullets before fleeing. The injured officials were moved to the ASH, where they both died during treatment. The victims had been shot multiple times.

The police cordoned off the spot and found empty bullet casings that were sent to the Sindh Police laboratory for forensic tests. The attack was believed to be another target killing.