Police encounter: Three, including escaped death row convict killed

Family dismisses claims, says the deceased had been in custody.

FAISALABAD:

Three men were killed by the police in a shootout on Monday.

Police said all three men were proclaimed offenders. One of them, they said, had been convicted of a murder and awarded death sentence by a court last month.

The shootout took place in the Dijkot area where Akram Jaura, the murder convict, had taken shelter with his accomplices, including his two brothers, after he fled from custody on Saturday night.

Police said Jaura escaped while he was being taken to a prison in Bahawalpur from Faisalabad Jail in a police van. They said his accomplices attacked the police van and took him away.

Jaura, a resident of Nagan, was kept in the Faisalabad district jail, from where he was being shifted to Bahawalpur jail for security reasons.

The police van was ambushed by 10 armed men in two cars near Shadab Mor on Jhang Road and police were shot at.

Police officials said the van tyres had burst in the firing. The armed men had then held up the policemen and took Jaura with them Police said the men also snatched their guns while they fled.

Soon after the escape, Senior Superintendent of Police (Operations) Sadiq Dogar set up a team of senior officials to re-arrest Jaura.

The team comprised Superintendent of Police (CIA) Zameerul Haq, Jhang Bazaar Station House Officer Farrukh Waheed, investigation in charge Idrees Iqbal, Dijkot Station House officer Mian Rafique, and Batala Colony Station House Officer Umar Daraz.

The officers were also directed to install pickets around the area and check each suspicious vehicle.

On Monday, police team raided the area on a tip-off. Four men fled away in a car, while Jaura and his brothers, Azam and Muhammad Khan alias Khani, shot at the police. The police shot back killing all three men on the spot.

The SSP said the police had recovered a sub-machine gun, a Kalashnikov rifle, a G-III rifle and three loaded magazines from those killed.

He said the police had fixed Rs200,000 head money each for Azam and Muhammad Khan. He said both of them were wanted in more than 12 cases of murder and robbery.

Jaura’s wife has, however, called it a fake encounter. She denied that her husband had fled from police custody and said that her brothers-in-law had also been in police custody. She said the police were telling the wrong story and that the encounter was a planned one.

“If my husband was such a big criminal as the police make him put to be, how come only a few policemen were escorting him to another city?” she said.

“This was planned by certain police officers who are considered experts in killing people in fake police encounters.”

Ghulam Fareed, another relative of Jaura, also said that her and his brothers had been in police custody when they were killed.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^th, 2012.