Three robbers killed in encounter after bank heist

They had robbed a bank of Rs1.3m in barely five minutes

HYDERABAD: It took five robbers around five minutes to rob a United Bank Limited branch in Hyderabad of Rs1.3 million on Friday.

However, the next few hours proved fatal for the suspects as three of them, identified as Fahad Memon, Asad Pathan and Manzoor Punjabi, were shot dead in a police encounter. The police also claimed to have obtained details about the other two suspects as well as their facilitator.

“We suspect the group is linked to a Karachi-based terrorist outfit,” Hyderabad SSP Irfan Baloch told The Express Tribune. “They have, in recent months, carried out many other robberies, targeting two people of the Bohri community and as many Hindus in four separate incidents.”

Although the robbers finished the robbery in less than five minutes, starting at 11:58am, when they tried to escape on their two motorcycles, a police guard deployed at a nearby bank opened fire at the robbers. The assault left one of the suspects injured, according to the Market police, in whose limits the incident happened. The bank is located at Liberty Chowk near Civil hospital, which is a central location in the city.

Around 30 minutes later, three of the slain suspects, including the wounded one, were rounded up from an apartment building, within the limits of Bhitai Nagar police. Their arrest led to a subsequent police raid at around 4pm within the limits of the Hatri police, where the other robbers resisted the raid.

“The blood spots on the building’s stairs helped the police immediately trace the suspects,” said a Bhittai Nagar police officer, who had arrested the three suspects before handing them over to another police team.

According to Hyderabad SSP Baloch, the other two suspects and their accomplices opened fire at the police. The police did not, however, whose firing killed the suspects.

CCTV footage

Meanwhile, the closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera footage obtained by The Express Tribune from a police source shows that five robbers, including two dressed in shalwar kameez and three in trousers and shirts, broke into the bank at 11:58am. All of them had covered their faces with surgical masks and handkerchiefs.

A security guard sitting inside the bank was the first person to be grabbed and disarmed. One of the suspects forcefully entered the cashiers section. “They just looted cash from the cashier but didn’t try to enter the lockers,” a bank officer requesting anonymity told The Express Tribune.

An FIR of the encounter was registered at the Hatri police station on the complaint of Market police station SHO Muneer Abbasi, who claimed that they arrested only one injured suspect, Memon, who later led the police to the hideout of the other suspects in Vanki Vasi area.

According to the FIR, the slain suspects, Pathan, a resident of Lea Market in Karachi, and Punjabi, who lived in Hyderabad’s Zeal Pak Colony, were shot dead in the exchange of fire while Memon succumbed to his injuries. The FIR said that six suspects were involved in the robbery, three of whom have been killed. The other three have been identified as Luqman alias Saeed Pathan, Rafay and Rashid.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 23^rd, 2016.