Busted: Two women among four arrested

ISLAMABAD: Police have busted a four-member gang that drove vans and cars posing as public transporters and looting commuters.

The gang, which included two women, was busted by the Special Investigation Unit on a tip-off. The suspects were identified as Mushtaq Ali, Qamar Zaman, Shahnaz and Gulshan Bibi. The police also recovered a white Corolla XLI car from the suspects who would use it fro the crime and gold ornaments they had stolen from a victim.

The SIU started tracing the suspects after the Sabzi Mandi police registered a theft case earlier this month. Muhammad Younis, a complainant, told the police that on July 3, he was waiting for public transport to get to the Daewoo bus terminal, when the suspects came in a van posing as public transporters and offered him ride to the bus terminal. He boarded the van but on way he was deprived of gold ornaments he was supposed to deliver in Lahore.

The police said that a few days later the suspects were arrested in Rawalpindi where they were selling the stolen jewellery.

The suspects confessed to pick-pocketing and looting citizens after giving them ride in a van or in a car in various areas of Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Peshawar.

Further investigation is under way.

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