In a violent incident that has rocked Lyari’s highly sensitive neighborhood, Zubair Baloch, the brother of imprisoned Pakistani gangster and former People’s Amn Committee chief Uzair Baloch, was shot and critically injured in a killing spree. The targeted attack took place on Thursday evening in Karachi, heightening local fears of gang wars coming back.
Zubair Baloch (40) was sitting outside his house in Singu Lane (Chakiwara Road) when the attackers came on a motorcycle and opened fire, reported the Pakistani daily Dawn. Zubair had multiple severe gunshot wounds to his chest and abdomen and two innocent bystanders were also injured, with one in serious condition. Quick-thinking locals and a local shopkeeper tried to respond by returning fire, and the attackers fled the scene. The wounded individuals were quickly rushed to Karachi’s Civil Hospital, where Zubair was immediately taken for medical intervention and surgery.
South Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Syed Asad Raza said local investigators had also launched a comprehensive multi-angle investigation into the shooting. Police are looking into a variety of reasons, from personal enmity to a dangerous revival of old gang rivalries. Zubair was previously linked and arrested in seven criminal cases dating back to 2012, and was released on bail in January last year.
The sense of unease in Lyari has been compounded by community anxieties. Speaking anonymously to local media, one social activist from Lyari said that Zubair had turned to a political party several months before the attack and had been waving party flags around his home neighborhood. Meanwhile, there are still rumors in the streets that a few old gang fighters that had fled to Dubai and Iran in the past after state crackdowns—as in Karachi in 2012, for example—have been brought back following regional geopolitical shifts like the recent US-Iran conflict.
The high-profile shooting has once again put the Baloch family name in the international media spotlight. The family's underworld ties were once again tapped into with the recent success of the highly successful Bollywood thriller film Dhurandhar and its sequel that made up with the character of Uzair Baloch as well, played by Danish Pandor. In both the film and the real world, Uzair is portrayed as the central character who established Lyari’s criminal network. And the family’s legal problems continue to be a huge headache as well as the legal ones that came to light recently when earlier this year an anti-terrorism court in March denied Uzair Baloch several bail pleas for the ongoing trials for murder, police encounters, and explosives as a result of a 2012 attack on law enforcement officers in the Kalakot police station jurisdiction. With Uzair already serving 12 years in prison for espionage by a military court, the assassination attempt on his brother threatens to destroy the fragile security of southern Karachi.
