Samaa finds out 'one gun kills a ton' in Karachi

KARACHI: A ‘forensic ballistics’ report has revealed that triggermen wreaking deadly havoc inKarachi have been using the same guns to pick off their targets over and over again, Samaa Investigation Unit (SIU) has learnt.

That is to say a handful of gunslingers, who could be stalking their prey in their relatively small hunting grounds even right now, shot dozens of victims dead with their time-tested weapons of choice without any fear of getting caught in the financial center of Pakistan.

According to a report compiled after the ballistic fingerprinting of shell casings from 40 firearms, which were used in 133 fatal shootings carried out in the last one-and-a-half-years, the ‘hands’ may have changed but tools did not.

The highest number of gun-related casualties was recorded in Orangi Town, an administrative district in the northwestern part of the metropolis. The report says at least 43 people were shot dead in the Asia’s largest slum over the aforementioned period.

The shocking finding is the bullets that caused the deaths of those victims had escaped from the business ends of the same nine guns. Rings a bell?

It’s hard to say for sure if it was the same shooter who had been pulling the trigger but one of the guns was found to have been active within two kilometers of Orangi Town’s Pakistan Bazaar.

There in Korangi, one of the neighbourhoods of Landhi Town in eastern Karachi, at least nine people of a sect including Ijaz Khawaja, an inspector of police, were gunned down between August 2014 and January 2015. Again, the shooter or the gun was the same.

Similarly, another hitman or to be politically correct ‘the gun’, was dealing in death in Azizabad, the bastion of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM). In just under three months the same gun or the man behind it killed seven followers of a sect. Among his or its victims was also the Son of Shia cleric Abbas Kumeli.

A torpedo was busy stamping out people in Ittehad Town too. According to the report, he or the gun he packed, riddled no less than eight policemen with bullets. They all died of the gunshot wounds.

Ittihad Town is one of the neighbourhoods of Baldia Town in Karachi. There are several ethnic groups in Ittehad Town including Muhajirs, Sindhis, Kashmiris, Seraikis, Pakhtuns, Balochis, Memons, Bohras, Ismailis, etc. 

On Wednesday,  at least 46 Shiite Ismaili Muslims were massacred in the first attack officially claimed by the Islamic State group in the country.Wednesday's attack was the second-deadliest in Pakistan this year after 62 Shiite Muslims were killed in a suicide bombing in late January.

Karachi, a city of 20 million people, is wracked by violence and targeted shootings are a near-daily occurrence, either for robbery or for religious, political or ethnic reasons.