According to details, more than four people were also injured in the firing, one in the foot.

The injured have been shifted to the hospital for treatment.

Lyari has been turned into a war zone by angry mobs in retaliation to the attitude of the police and law enforcement agencies, which has forced businesses, markets and shops to close down for fear of life.

Media personnel reporting from the scene of violence said that there was no presence of Rangers, Frontier Corps (FC) or any other law enforcing agency to stop the anarchy in the area.

A bloody wave of violence has claimed hundreds of lives this year, and is also taking a financial toll on the city that is the economic hub of Pakistan.

The city is riddled with crime, political and ethnic bloodshed.

Last year nearly 1,800 lives were lost as drug, land, gun and extortion mafias linked to ethnically-based political parties threatened to plunge the city of 17 million people into urban anarchy.

More than 300 people have been killed in violence in Karachi in the last three months, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP).

Market analysts say disturbances in Karachi are affecting foreign investment as well.

According to analysts foreign investment in Pakistan stood at $5.4 billion four years ago, which shrank to $1.6 billion last year and is expected to further reduce to a maximum of $1 billion in the financial year ending on June 30.

Karachi is a melting pot of different ethnic groups -- Mohajirs, Sindhis, Pashtuns, Punjabis and Baloch -- as migrants from all over the country have come in search of a better life.

Millions in the city rely on daily piece work to make a living, and every day lost to violence or shutdowns is a day without income.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2012

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2012