KARACHI - It seems that robbers have devised a relatively easy way to fund their nefarious activities by conducting back-to-back bank robberies in the City. Robbers looted Rs1.5 million from a bank branch at Nishter Road here on Tuesday.
The number of bank heists reaches the 8th mark in the current year proving the failure of law enforcers who were busy doing Karachi operation.
Eight robbers barged into the bank at around 10:50am. Two out of eight robbers stayed outside while six members of the gang entered the bank. One of the robbers clad in Shalwar Kameez while the remaining others wore pant shirts and speaking with each other in Urdu.
Witnesses and police said the robbers held the security guards, customers and the staff members hostage on gunpoint.
They also deprived the customers and the staff members with the cellphones, cash and other valuables. The armed men managed to escape before the police reached the site. Police officials while quoting the witnesses said the armed bandits had arrived on four motorcycles and took five minutes to complete their swift operation. “They held all of them hostage on gunpoint before cutting the connections of the CCTV cameras installed in the bank,” said SHO Imdad Ali Khawaja.
The officer said the robbers also took away the guns of the two security guards. Though they had disconnected the CCTV cameras, however, the police have obtained the primary footages of the robbery. The police have also detained both the guards over their possible involvement in the bank heist. An FIR No 48/14 was also registered on behalf of the bank manager, Mazhar Ashfaq against unidentified persons.
Meanwhile, the target killers killed in a police encounter in Naizimabad locality were associated with defunct Sipah-e-Muhammad Pakistan, The Nation has learnt here.
Two target killers were killed by the police minutes after they had killed a shopkeeper in Nazimabad’s Old Urdu Bazaar. A member of Dawat-e-Islami, Maulana Zafar Aslam was injured near Baqai Hospital in two separate consecutive targeted attacks in Nazimabad locality. They were killed after an exchange of fire with the New Karachi police station SHO Chaudhry Afzal who was passing through the area at that time.
Their bodies were later kept at the morgue Sohrab Goth for identification where police, with their informers, identified them as Muhammad Ali aka Samar Abbas, resident of Hassan Colony area of Gulbahar, and Baqir Ali, resident of Jaffar Tayyar Society, Malir.
Chaudhry Afzal told The Nation said both of them were associated with the sectarian group and had also killed several other people. SHO Nazimabad police station Ejaz Lodhi said the victims were affiliated with Sipah-e-Muhammad Pakistan. The group have had killed over 250 people. He said Farhat Abbas, Qalbe Abbas, Jaffar, Ala-e-Muhammad were arrested earlier. They pointed out Samar Abbas as their chief.
An FIR was also registered against them at Nazimabad police station. The police officials believed that they were also involved in various other crimes especially the recent cases of targeted killings.
Despite they have been identified, their bodies are still kept at the Edhi morgue as the police were not allowing their families to take their bodies away with them for burial. “I just want to say that they are working for religious and political parties to whom they were affiliated,” said chief of the District West and Central Police DIG, Javed Odho.