KARACHI: A young man was shot dead while another wounded inside a private guest house in the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) on Tuesday evening over some personal dispute, police said.

They identified the deceased as Mustafa Kausar, 30, and wounded as Mujahid Ali, 40. The incident occurred at ‘Marigold guest house’ in Phase-VII. The two along with one another friend were staying there for some business.

Defence SHO Shahid Taj said that during the initial probe, it transpired that the incident appeared to be an outcome of some ‘business dispute.’ He said they had detained Mujahid for interrogation while their third friend Ubaid managed to escape from the spot.

The officer said these three friends came to Karachi from Rawalpindi for some business. They arrived in the city traveling in a Civic car four days ago and stayed at the guest house.

On Tuesday evening, Mujahid came out from the room at 4pm by saying that he had fallen down in the washroom and suffered injuries, the SHO said.

The officer said the guest house staff, realising something fishy, went to the room where they saw Mustafa lying dead with gunshot wounds. CCTV footage obtained by the police showed their third friend Ubaid had already left the place at 10am.

He said the pistol and car owned by the deceased were missing, adding that both the wounded and who fled were Afghans while the deceased was a resident of Rawalpindi.

He said the deceased’s father, Kausar, told the police on phone that the friends had some dispute over ‘monetary transaction.’ The father also told the police that his son carried significant cash that was also missing. He said an exchange of hot words had taken place between them on Monday night.

During initial interrogation, the injured suspect told the police they were doing sale/purchase of LEDs jointly.

The body and wounded were shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for medico-legal formalities. The Crime Scene Unit of the police was called to collect evidence from the crime scene. Spent bullet casings had been recovered for investigation purposes.

Workman killed by boulder

A workman was killed by a heavy boulder, which fell down from a hill near Nusrat Bhutto Colony in North Karachi during a digging work being carried out by heavy machinery in order to extract stones and aggregate for “commercial use” on Tuesday, officials said.

Rescue-1122 official Hassaan Khan told Dawn that the heavy machinery was being used to cut stones at the hills when a large boulder fell down during a landslip.

He said after receiving information, their urban rescue team arrived at the spot, removed the rubble and retrieved the body buried beneath the stones. The workman was identified as Ghani-ur-Rehman, 42.

The rescue official added that they came to know that the heavy machinery was being used for “commercial purpose”.

However, he added that they were informed that stones were being cut for marble shops located there while sometimes, this activity was also being done to “pave the way”.

After the incident a dispute also arose over jurisdiction of three concerning police stations.

Manghopir police station SHO Imran Ahmed Khan told Dawn that his and two other police stations — the Sir Syed and Sharea Noorjehan — had sent their police teams to ascertain the circumstances which led to the death.

The SHO added that there was a “crushing plant in the area for reti-bajri” (stones and aggregate) extraction.

He said the crushing work was underway when the heavy stones fell “inside the premises of a company, killing their worker”.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2025