The three brothers who were found shot dead on Saturday.

KARACHI: Police have launched an investigation to ascertain the identity and motive of the culprits who kidnapped three brothers, later on gunned them down and threw their bodies at two separate places in Gulbahar and Shershah.

Two bullet-riddled bodies were found on the bank of Lyari river near Lasbella on Saturday. Later, they were identified as brothers, Kashif and Ashiq, residents of Old Golimar. The third body wrapped in a blanket was found on Akbar Road in Shershah on a bank of the Lyari river. A single bullet was shot to his head.

Shershah SHO Ghulam Rasool Rajpar told Dawn on Sunday that the victim was identified as Saqib, the third brother.

Both Shershah and Gulbahar police have registered murder cases on behalf of state and started investigations. SSP-investigation (West zone) Akhtar Farooq told Dawn that the police were investigating the motive for the murder of the three brothers.

He said an initial probe suggested that the victims were maternal nephews of Arshad Papu, the alleged gangster who was brutally murdered in Lyari, allegedly by his rival gang led by Uzair Baloch. The officer said it was yet to be ascertained that whether their killings were motivated by gang rivalry or something else was involved.

He said the grandmother of the victim, Sangeen Bibi, had approached the Shershah police on late Saturday night to claim Saqib’s body.

Sangeen Bibi told Dawn on telephone that her maternal grandsons were kidnapped by unknown persons in the Golimar area on Friday at around 9:30pm. They tried to contact on their mobile phones but could not get any reply. She said they visited the Civil Hospital Karachi, Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre and Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where a volunteer of Chhipa told them on Saturday that three bodies had been found. Two bodies were kept at the Chhipa mortuary and the third one was kept at the Edhi morgue, where relatives identified them on Saturday night.

Sangeen Bibi said she had remained president of the PPP women’s wing in West district and the slain party chief Benazir Bhutto had appointed her a member of the party’s Sindh council. However, after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, she had lost interest in politics.

She said she did not expect any justice from the police or the government. She said three sons of her maternal cousin were gunned down in Malir two to three years ago.

She said the son of her sister was shot at and wounded by gangsters in Old Golimar when he objected to selling of drugs outside his home. He remained hospitalised in the CHK for four months.

Bibi pointed out that in 2009 their grandsons’ home in Old Golimar was torched allegedly by members of the Rehman Dakait-led gang. She visited the Pak Colony police but the then SHO did not register an FIR. Later on, she approached the SP who got her FIR registered but they did not get any justice.

“PPP and PML-N are claiming that they are ruling but there is no government, there is the government of gangsters,” she said.

“Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is claiming that he has restored peace in Karachi but what sort of peace is this when three brothers are killed at one place,” she said.

Ms Bibi said she had also remained an elected councilor from SITE Town on a PPP ticket but “no one was listening to her in the PPP”.

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2016