KARACHI: The key suspects involved in a robbery at the Edhi Centre in October this year were arrested on Tuesday, according to the police.
The investigators also claim to have apprehended the men involved in a daylight robbery at the Chhipa Welfare Association. A total of six arrests were declared in both the cases.
On October 19, a group of robbers stormed into the head office of the Edhi Foundation in Mithadar and held the philanthropist, Abdul Sattar Edhi, and his employees hostage. They fled with millions of rupees worth of valuables. Before the incident at Edhi on October 5, a similar robbery had taken place at Chhipa's head office near the FTC flyover on Sharae Faisal. These robbers walked away with valuables worth Rs300,000.
As the police began probing these incidents, they realised that a same group of criminals may have been involved. On Tuesday, District South police chief DIG Abdul Khalique Shaikh announced the arrests at a press conference at his office.
The men involved in the Edhi robbery were identified as Muhammad Saleem, a former driver at the Edhi Foundation, Jamshed, the man who planned the entire robbery, Imranullah and Muhammad Ali, who was also found involved in the robbery at Chhipa. Moreover, Suleman and Asif were arrested over their alleged involvement in the Chhipa robbery.
District South Investigations SSP Khawaja Naveed, who was also at the press conference, added that they are looking for three more suspects, including a former employee of the Edhi Foundation who is currently associated with another welfare organisation, in the Edhi case. They are also on the look-out for two suspects in the Chhipa case.
"They are professional criminals," claimed SSP Naveed. "They knew how to avoid their arrests so they made sure the police were unable to find them by tracing the locations of their cellphones used in the robbery." The investigator added that the suspects always changed their SIM cards after communicating with each other.
The police investigators managed to arrest them when the suspects made their only mistake. "Jamshed spoke to his friend in Peshawar with a used SIM card that helped us trace his friend in Peshawar," said an official privy to the matter. "We arrested his friend in Peshawar and later arrested Jamshed from Kohat." Jamshed's arrest helped the police arrest his comrades and Ali's arrest helped them arrest those involved in the Chhipa robbery.
Recovering stolen goods
"Besides the arrests, we have also recovered the cash and gold from their possession," announced DIG Shaikh.
According to SSP Naveed, around 70 per cent of the stolen goods were found. This includes gold worth five kilogrammes, cash and prize bonds worth Rs25 million. The remaining amount, which is another Rs25 million has yet to be traced. However, sources in the Edhi office told The Express Tribune that they lost gold and currency worth Rs120 million but only 10 per cent of it has been recovered by the police.
Edhi's son, Faisal, praised the police for their efforts. "It was just like a blind case and no doubt the police made efforts to probe the case," he said while talking to The Express Tribune. The Edhi Foundation has also returned the Rs50 million, which were donated by real estate tycoon Malik Riaz following the robbery. "We are thankful to Malik Riaz but we cannot take this money. I have returned the amount by transferring it to the same bank account," Faisal explained.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 17th, 2014.
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