• No bullet was fired from inside the victims’ vehicle, says SSP South.
• SSP investigation reveals two types of weapons were used in attack.
• Advocate Akram Abro was a member of the Sindh Bar Council.

Sindh MPA Aslam Abro’s brother and nephew were gunned down by unidentified assailants in a “targeted attack” in Karachi’s Defence Housing Society (DHA) Phase VII near Ayesha Mosque on Wednesday.

SSP South Asad Raza confirmed that the lawmaker’s brother Akram Abro, his son Shahryar Abro and another person named Irshad were killed while another man sustained bullet injuries when unidentified armed men riding on motorcycles and a vehicle targeted them earlier today.

The police officer also said that they recovered a licenced pistol from the victims, adding that no bullet was fired from inside the vehicle. It seemed that the attack was carried out after the victims’ recce, he added.

The SSP investigation revealed that two types of weapons were used in the attack. The police found spent shell casings of 9mm pistols and heavy weapons from the crime scene, he added. 

He said that the assailants opened fire on the vehicle from all four sides. The victims, he added, were heading to DHA Phase VII from Khayaban-e-Shamsheer.

After being informed the police and rescue officials rushed to the scene and shifted the bodies and the injured to the Jinnah Post Graduate Medical Centre (JPMC).

Advocate Akram Abro was a member of the Sindh Bar Council and he practices law in Jacobabad. It is pertinent to mention here that the victim’s brother was elected to Sindh Assembly in 2018 on a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) ticket but he was expelled in 2021 for reportedly violating the party’s discipline during the Senate elections.

Hospital authorities said that the senior lawyer scumbled to his injuries during treatment while his son was dead when he was brought to the health facility.

Talking to journalists at the JPMC, Additional IG Karachi Javed Alam Odho said that they have collected 50 spent shell casings from the crime scene and set for a forensic audit. He was of the view that the armed men were riding on a motorcycle and a vehicle. The victims did not have personal enmity with anyone, the police officer said quoting their family.

‘No personal enmity’

Aslam Abro, however, said that they did not have personal enmity with anyone. The MPA said that his brother and nephew onboard a vehicle were heading to Jacobabad from Khayaban-e-Shamsheer when six people — what he claimed five of them were equipped with Kalashnikovs and one holding a pistol — opened fire on them near Ayesha Mosque.

“My brother and nephew were the targets,” he added.

Responding to a question, the lawmaker said that the police were cooperating with them. The MPA said that he also held a telephone conversation with Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah in this regard.

Sindh Bar Council condemns brutal murder

In addition to this, the SBC strongly condemned the brutal murder of Advocate Abro in Karachi.

In a statement, the bar council termed the brutal murder as a complete failure of law enforcement agencies which has put a “big question mark over their performance”.

The body urged the Sindh IG and other authorities concerned and law enforcement agencies to take immediate notice, arrest the killers and bring them to justice.