NISAR MEHDI AND MANSOOR KHAN KARACHI - Interior Minister Rehman Malik announced that the government had decided to impose partial curfew in the violence-hit parts of the provincial metropolis from Sunday. Security agencies, however, failed to control law and order situation in the city as eight more people lost their lives in target killing incidents on Sunday, brining total death toll to 35 since Thursday last. Speaking to reporters at Karachi Airport before leaving for Islamabad, Rehman Malik said the decision regarding imposition of curfew had been taken in a high-level meeting held here. A semi-curfew will be imposed in some areas of Karachi, Malik said. The Interior Minister did not explain what he meant by semi-curfew, but Sindh Home Ministry spokesman Sharfuddin Memon said, It is for the authorities to decide for how long they would like a troubled area to remain under curfew. Malik reiterated that a third force was involved in the incidents of target killing in the metropolis, which would be exposed soon. Interior Minister Rehman Malik attended a high-level meeting at the CM House, which was presided over by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, to discuss the prevailing law and order situation in the metropolis. He also held one-on-one meeting with the Sindh CM. IG Sindh Sultan Babar Khattak, CCPO Karachi Fayyaz Leghari and other police officials and law enforcement officials were present in the meeting. According to a handout issued from the CM House after the meeting, the meeting decided to strictly take action against anti-social elements and that monitoring will further be broadened to keep a vigil on criminals and curb lawlessness. The meeting decided to launch operations in sensitive areas on the basis of intelligence reports. It also decided to use helicopters for effective surveillance of the troubled areas and take commando action in sensitive areas of the city. The police and Rangers have also been directed to check the CNICs of people during night hours while a strict vigilance will also be made at the airports to check the movement of those involved in cases of crime and the FIA was also directed to fulfil its obligations. The patrolling by law enforcement agencies will be boosted and pillion riding banned during night hours in sensitive areas of the metropolis in the wake of growing cases of targeted killings. It was also decided to take action against people using stolen or robbed mobile telephones as it has also been established that the criminal elements use stolen mobile phones to accomplish their nefarious designs. The meeting also urged the mobile phone agencies and stockists of mobile phones to fulfil their responsibility and honour their commitments to discourage the use of stolen phones by criminal elements. Sindh CM Qaim Ali Shah in his addressed vowed that that criminals would be dealt with an iron hand and no one would be allowed to destroy the peaceful environment of Karachi. Interior Minister Rehman thanked MQM Chief Altaf Hussain and ANP chief Asfandyar Wali for their wholehearted cooperation to bring peace in the city. The minister said air surveillance of the troubled areas would be conducted, adding that some target killers had been apprehended red-handed. While talking to The Nation, Sharfuddin Memon, a spokesman for the Sindh Home Department, said authorities had chalked out a strategy to cope with the situation, however he declined to disclose names of the sensitive areas where curfew would be imposed. He explained that specific areas would be cordoned off for a specific duration for door-to-door search operations. Meanwhile, eight more people including two MQM activists, two PPP workers and a Sunni Tehreek worker were gunned down in different areas of the metropolis as the violence showed no signs of abating on Sunday. Two MQM workers Kashif and Jaffer were shot dead by men riding a motorbike near Chona Bhatti area of Nanak Warah in the limits of Risala Police Station. Following the incident, tension gripped the area and commercial and non-commercial activities were suspended. A Sunni Tehreek worker Saeed Rafiq was killed and at least five other people including a woman were injured in firing incident in Ranchore Lane in the limits of Nabi Bux Police Station. Separately, unknown armed men resorted to indiscriminate firing near Urdu Chowk in Mominabad area, wounding four activists of Youth Wing of PPP. They were rushed to a hospital where two of them succumbed to their injures. The deceased were identified as Tahir Baloch and Zubair alias Kala. Police also found a bullet-riddled body near Malir riverbed. The body was taken to a hospital where the dead was identified as Murtaza. Another wounded man succumbed to his injuries at Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre. The deceased was later identified as Ajmal, 28, son of Aitbar Gul, resident of Saadi Town. Separately, Ahmed, a middle-aged social worker, was killed and his colleague Ilyas got injured when unidentified culprits riding a motorcycle opened firing at their social welfare office in Azizabad, police said.