A top Pakistani Supreme Court official shot dead

Islamabad, May 14: Unknown gunmen today killed an additional registrar of Pakistan Supreme Court in Islamabad, hours ahead of the scheduled hearing of the petition of the suspended top judge Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

Senior police officials said unknown assailants entered house of Syed Hamid Raza in the morning and shot him dead.

Reasons for the murder were not immediately known, which came two days after bloodiest violence in Karachi where 36 people were killed and more than 120 injured over weekend on the eve of Justice Chaudhry's visit to the port city.

Majority of people were killed in a cross fire between activists of the pro-government Mutahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Islamists, mostly belonging to radical Islamic groups.

The opposition parties had planned massive rallies on Mr Chaudhry's visit and his address to the Sindh High Court Bar Association but local authorities did not allow him to proceed to the court by road and sent him back to Islamabad after seven hours of stay in a Karachi airport lounge.

Sindh provincial government also banned assemblying of more than five people at any place in order to check increasing violence in the city. The paramilitary rangers were also ordered to shoot at site at any one creating disturbances.

UNI