Tragic news from Pakistan:

One of Pakistan’s most famous singers, Amjad Sabri, has been shot dead in the southern city of Karachi.

Two gunmen fired on his car in the busy Liaqatabad area, police said. Sabri died on his way to hospital.

A faction of the Pakistani Taliban has told the BBC it carried out the attack.

Sabri was a leading exponent of Sufi devotional music, known as Qawwali. Sufism, a tolerant, mystical practice of Islam, has millions of followers in Pakistan but is opposed by extremists.

Of course. They don’t want tolerance and mysticism, they want rules and punishments and hatred. They don’t want music and devotion, they want submission and obedience enforced by punishment.

The BBC’s Islamabad correspondent M Ilyas Khan comments:

There have been the usual calls to identify and arrest the killers, but also voices of despair over the continued failure to end militancy in Pakistan.

Karachi has been under a military operation for more than three years, but the gunmen have shown they can still hit their targets at will.

Amjad Sabri came from a family which traces its musical links to the 17th Century court of India’s Mughal empire. The family adheres to the Sabiriyah branch of Sufi Islam, hence the name Sabri. It migrated to Pakistan when India was divided in 1947, and has been based since then in Karachi.

The band led by Amjad’s father, Ghulam Farid Sabri, dominated the Qawwali scene in India and Pakistan during the 1970s and 80s. Amjad himself was considered a great performer who produced both traditional and commercial music and also sang for movie soundtracks in India and Pakistan.

He apparently presented a soft target with a wider shock value.

Another morsel to toss into the gaping jaws of The Evil God.