ISTANBUL, Pakistan — Armed gunmen attacked a Pakistani Christian welfare organization in Karachi Sept. 25, killing seven Christians and leaving an eighth critically injured, Compass Direct news service reported.
According to local police, two unidentified attackers entered the third-floor offices of the Idare-e-Amn-O-Insaf, or Institute for Peace and Justice, in central Karachi shortly after working hours began. The assailant apparently gagged all the office staff and tied them to chairs before shooting eight of them point-blank in the head then escaping.
Six of the victims died on the spot, while a seventh died later in the hospital and an eighth is still fighting for his life. An additional office worker who was beaten and tied up was not shot, however, enabling him to wriggle free a half-hour later to summon the police.
Although the shooting was Karachi’s first attack against a Christian institution this year, suicide and car bomb attacks against Western targets in the city in May and June killed 11 foreigners and 16 Pakistanis.
The shooting was the fifth deadly assault on Christians in Pakistan since last October, when militant Islamist groups vowed to retaliate against President Pervaiz Musharraf’s decision to support the U.S. war on terrorism. The toll from the string of anti-Christian attacks now comes to 39 killed and 75 injured.
Share with others: