By Syed Raza Hassan
KARACHI (Reuters) – An Afghan diplomat was shot dead on Monday by a guard at the Afghan consulate in Pakistan’s southern city of Karachi in a personal dispute, officials said.
The consulate’s third secretary was killed by the consulate guard, also an Afghan national, who had been arrested, police official Saqib Ismail told Reuters.
“The guard used his automatic weapon, firing multiple bullets,” Ismail said.
Afghanistan’s foreign ministry issued a statement identifying the murdered diplomat as Muhammad Zaki Abdu.
“Police authorities immediately intervened to minimise further loss of life,” read the statement.
Afghan ambassador to Pakistan Omar Zakhilwal described the shooting on his official Facebook account.
“Firing inside Afg Consulate General in Karachi at around 12:30 pm today … has been carried out by an Afghan guard inside the compound resulting in fatality of one of our diplomats,” he wrote.
Deputy Inspector General of Police Azad Khan told Reuters: “So far, from what we have gathered from investigation, the killing seems to be the result of some sort of personal grudge between the guard and third secretary. We have found there was a history of tensions between the two persons.”
(Reporting by Syed Raza Hassan; Additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni in Kabul; Writing by Kay Johnson; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
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