Karachi: Five Shia Muslims were shot dead and seven more injured on October 3 while on their way to a mosque for Friday prayers in Pakistan's commercial hub Karachi, according to police sources.

"Two men riding on a motorbike opened fire on their passenger van as they were going for Friday prayers," city police chief Tariq Jamil said.

"Five people were killed on the spot while seven were injured. Three of them are reported to be serious."

The police officer said it was a sectarian killing.

The victims were employees of a Defence research body called Space and Upper Atmospheric Research Organisation (SUPARCO). They routinely travelled to a local mosque on Friday, Islam's holy day, to offer prayers, Jamil said.

A Shiite political party blamed the attack on two outlawed Sunni extremist outfits.

"Lashkar-e-Jhangavi (LeJ) and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) are the local operators of al-Qaida and this is part of the appeal made by al-Zawahiri to topple Pervez Musharraf's government," Hasan Turabi, regional chief of the Shiite Tehrik-e-Islamia group, said.

"I fear more incidents of this nature in future and I demand that operation should be conducted not only on the border with Afghanistan but also against local al-Qaida operators," Turabi said.

Musharraf had banned LeJ and SSP, in 2002, in an effort to curb sectarian violence, which has claimed the lives of some 4,000 people in the past few years.

Agencies