The former journalist and blogger died at the weekend when two gunmen opened fire on him and a journalist friend, Rao Khalid, at a Karachi restaurant.
Khalid and a bystander, according to this report, were critically wounded in the attack.
Zaki was an active campaigner for human rights and edited the website and Facebook page “Let Us Build Pakistan (LUBP)”, which claims to “spread liberal religious views”.
LUBP Editor in Chief Ali Abbas Taj offered condolences “to the Pakistani nation on the martyrdom of Zaki” and said he was second from the editorial team of LUBP to be killed by Deobandi militants.
For the last year, Zaki was a target of a systematic hate campaign by Deobandi fanatic Shamsuddin Amjad of the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan in collaboration with the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP).
Taj said “hateful and violence inciting posters” against Zaki had been published recently by the Facebook page run by the pro-Taliban fanatics of Jamaat-e-Islami.
According to his Twitter profile, Zaki was the former head of current affairs for TV Channel News One, where he looked after infotainment and religious programming.
Zaki’s website Lubpak.com is currently blocked in Pakistan.
Zaki was last in the media limelight alongside activist Jibran Nasir in a campaign against Lal Masjid cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz, above, for inciting hatred against Shia Muslims. The campaigners had managed to get a case registered against Aziz.
According to social media, Zaki was also a research scholar, blogger as well as human rights activist.
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) condemned the killing and demanded the immediate arrest of the murderers.
LUBP described Zaki as a staunch critic of the systematic attacks on Shia Muslims, Sunni Sufis Muslims, Christians and other communities in Pakistan at the hands of Deobandi militants.
His death is the grim reminder that whoever raises voice against Taliban and Jamaat-e-Islami Deobandi mafia in Pakistan will not be spared. And when they have to murder, they never fail.
Meanwhile, it is reported from Bangladesh that another person has been hacked to death .
The body of 65-year-old Mohammad Shahidullah, a Sufi Muslim spiritual leader, was recovered at the weekend in a mango orchard in Tanore, located in the country’s Rajshahi district, according to Mohammad Nisharul Arif, superintendent of the district police.
Arif said Shahidullah was murdered as he left a meeting organised by his disciples. Shahidullah called himself a pir, a term for a Sufi spiritual guide.His body bore the hallmarks of previous attacks carried out by radical Islamist activists, including deep cuts on the shoulder and with his throat slit.
However, police are not sure “if the murder had any link to the previous murders of bloggers, secular activists and pirs,” Arif said.
Hat tip: Peter Sykes