KARACHI, Oct 21: A man who recently embraced Shia sect was shot dead at his shop by armed men in Orangi Town early Friday morning, police said.

However, the police ruled out a sectarian motive behind the killing insisting that the man was shot dead by armed robbers when he put up resistance.

`At around 6.30am, Abdul Ghaffar, son of Wahid Bakhsh, was opening his shop in Baloch Goth when two armed men riding a motorbike pulled up there,` said an official at the Orangi Town police station.

He added that the armed men tried to rob the shop and fired at him when he resisted.

`The attackers did not take anything from the shop and sped away,` the official said.

The police said that the victim had converted from Sunni sect a few weeks back.

They quoted his family as saying that the victim had added `Hussain` to his name following the conversion.

Till midnight, an FIR pertaining to the killing had not been lodged at the Orangi Town police station.

Freewill couple attacked A woman was killed and her husband seriously wounded in an attack inside their house in Ayub Goth within the remit of the Sohrab Goth police station on Friday, officials said.

In her dying statement, 25year-old Laila identified the attackers as Fayyaz and his brother Riaz and told the police thatshehadbeenengaged to the former before marrying Azhar, the officials added.

The police said the suspects barged into the couple`s house in Rajput Colony and attacked them with an axe and a repeater gun before fleeing. `The couple was rushed to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where the woman gave a statement to the police before she succumbed to her wounds,` said an official at the Sohrab Goth police station. He added that Azhar was stated to be in a serious condition.

The official said that the woman had fled her parents` house in Larkana to marry Azhar, who was from D.G. Khan, about a year back.