A 56-year-old Hindu doctor has been fatally shot outside his clinic in Pakistan’s port city of Karachi, in what is being described as a “religiously motivated murder”. Dr Pireetam Lakhwani, a resident of Garden East, was shot once in his chest near Bara Road in Pak Colony on Thursday.
Lakhwani was rushed to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital and later shifted to Aga Khan University Hospital where he succumbed to his injuries yesterday.
“He was returning home from his clinic when he came under attack,” Lakhwani’s son Rakesh Kumar was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune.
“Someone called me from my father’s cellphone and informed me that he has been killed,” said Kumar. The victim’s son said that his father neither had any personal enmity nor had he received any threats. He had been running the clinic for the past 15 years.
The police is yet to determine the motive behind the murder. The doctor’s clinic was located in a residential area and the incident occurred when there was a power failure in the locality. It is yet to be ascertained who was behind the attack, said police, which believe it was a targeted killing.
“No one saw the culprit or culprits. We don’t even know whether there was more than one culprit,” said police officer Muhammad Hasnain.
An FIR has been registered and further investigation is underway. Meanwhile, Muttahida Qaumi Movement minority legislator Sanjay Perwani termed Lakhwani’s killing a “religiously motivated murder”.
“Dr Lakhwani had asked his assistant to bring a balance card for his cellphone and, when the assistant went away, someone came over there and shot him,” said Perwani, adding that there was no evidence of theft to suggest some other motive.
Last week, 32-year-old Hindu doctor Anil Kumar was found dead under mysterious circumstances inside the Intensive Care Unit of a civil hospital in Karachi. Earlier, two members of the Hindu community were among three people shot dead in an attack on a wine shop in the Abbas Town area of the metropolis.