Gunmen kill Shi'a man in port city of Karachi

Unidentified gunmen shot dead a Shi'a man in a sectarian-motivated attack in the Pakistani port city of Karachi on Monday, local media reported. Taseer Abbas Zaidi was killed in FB Area of Karachi when two men on a motorbike open fired on him. He was the brother of noha khawan Raza Abbas. Tension gripped the area immediately after the incident and unidentified men forced shopkeepers to close their stores. Police and Rangers have been deployed to the affected areas. The city has been under the grip of sectarian and political violence during the last couple of weeks, with the death toll standing at above 20 in the month of January. In another act of targeted killing, 59-year-old Jaffar Mohsin Rizvi the son of Syed Baqar Rizvi, was gunned down in Karachi on Saturday. Earlier chief of the Shia Ulema Council of Pakistan, Allama Sajid Ali Naqvi demanded a judicial commission to look into the killings of Shiite Muslims in Karachi. He denied that the killings were sectarian, arguing instead that some people were trying to create trouble between the sects. He said that the Difa-e-Pakistan Council had agnostic elements in it and his party would keep away from it. The Difa-e-Pakistan Council is an offshoot of the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan.