One crime too many: Three robbers killed in Muzaffargarh encounter

Robbers injured three villagers in a bid to escape, DPO supervised operation.

MULTAN:

Three robbers were killed in an exchange of firing with the police on Sunday after villagers and police collaborated to block their escape routes.

Three robbers were snatching motorcycles from residents in the rural area around Chak 650 in the evening when they held up Ghulam Rasoool, a local revenue official (patwari), headed towards Muzaffargarh city from the Chowk Sarwar Shaheed area. The robbers snatched his motorcycle and shot him twice when he tried to resist.

When the robbers escaped, the injured revenue official informed the police and also alerted residents of his village and of the other nearby villages.

The villagers, who had been upset over the recent rise in incidents of and motorbike and mobile phone snatching cases over the last fortnight, blocked the roads leading out of the area and waited for the police to arrive.

The police had set up several check-posts and deployed mobile units in the rural area around the Muzaffargarh sub-district in view of the recent incidents of motorbike snatching. Police units sealed roads around the crime scene within 15 minutes, the villagers said.

In their bid to escape, the robbers shot at a group of villagers, who were only carrying wooden sticks, blocking a road. Three villagers were shot and injured.



The robbers also shot at policemen when they reached the scene. The police fired back. The crossfire continued for more than an hour and ended with the death of the three robbers. Muzaffargarh District Police Officer (DPO) Rai Zameer-ul-Haq was present at the scene and monitored the operation.

The injured citizens were shifted to the Muzaffargarh district headquarters (DHQ) hospital where the doctors said their injuries were not life threatening. Doctors told The Express Tribune that the villagers had each been shot twice or thrice but they would recover.

The condition of Ghulam Rasool, the hospitalised local revenue official, who had alerted the police to the robbers, was also out of danger, they said.

The Muzaffargarh DPO told The Express Tribune that the three robbers were wanted in more than 70 crimes in Muzaffargarh and the adjoining districts.

He said that they had eluded arrest by constantly changing their hideouts in the rural areas and the police had been trying to locate them.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 2^nd, 2014.