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Pakistan holds repeat election in Karachi despite shooting death of senior politician

Associated Press
Published | Updated

In this undated photo released by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI, Movement for Justice) party press office in Karachi, Zohra Shahid, center, a senior member of former Pakistani cricket star Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party in Sindh, poses with unidentified women at an unknown location in Pakistan. Police said gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed Shahid outside her home on Saturday, May 18, 2013, in the city of Karachi in southern Sindh province. (AP Photo/PTI) (The Associated Press)

Pakistani volunteers carry the lifeless body of Zohra Shahid, a senior member of former Pakistani cricket star Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party in Sindh, to a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, Sunday, May 19, 2013. Police said gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed Shahid outside her home on Saturday, May 18, 2013, in the city of Karachi in southern Sindh province. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan) (The Associated Press)

Friends of Pakistani Zohra Shahid, a senior member of former Pakistani cricket star Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party in Sindh, mourn her death at a hospital in Karachi, Pakistan, Sunday, May 19, 2013. Police said gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed Shahid outside her home on Saturday, May 18, 2013, in the city of Karachi in southern Sindh province. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan) (The Associated Press)

Pakistan is holding a repeat election in an upmarket area of the southern city of Karachi that was plagued with allegations of vote-rigging.

The vote is going ahead Sunday despite the shooting death of a senior member of former cricket star Imran Khan's political party in Karachi the previous night.

Khan has blamed Zahra Shahid's killing on the Muttahida Quami Movement, the same party he accused of vote rigging in the May 11 election.

An MQM senator, Babar Ghori, denied the allegation.

Police officer Sarfaraz Nawaz said gunnmen shot Shahid on Saturday night as they tried to snatch her purse in front of her home and then sped away on a motorcyle.

He said they made it look like a robbery, but it could have been a targeted killing.