SP Liaquatabad Khawaja Naveed held a press conference on Tuesday in which he announced the capture of six suspects involved in cases of bank robbery, target killings, kidnapping for ransom and extortion.
Suspect Jannat Ali Jafri was one of the main fugitives on the run in the December 2009 heist, involving more than Rs300 million from the Allied Bank.
Jafri had gone into hiding and repeatedly escaped arrests even though over the years, at least five other accused in the case were nabbed. The suspect was eventually trapped by the police in Angara goth early Tuesday morning.
He has confessed to working in close coordination with the notorious criminal Mudassir ‘Chief’. He said that he had provided shelter to the accused in the case which at that time was labelled as the country’s biggest heist. Naveed says the suspect has a previous criminal record in at least four other cases of target killing and kidnapping for ransom.
The police officer also showed the arrests of five other accused. Suspects Raees Pathan, Badshah Khan and Tariq Khan were charged with being involved in kidnapping for ransom and target killing cases; Mohammad Nadeem and Fazeel Hayat were said to be extortionists.
Naveed says the suspects made money by kidnapping innocent people for a few hours in their own cars and he would release them after payment. “Most of these cases go unreported because the families, after making the payment, rarely approach the police,” he said. Most of these kidnappings were conducted by the group in Clifton, Defence, Gulshan-e-Iqbal and Liaqatabad. Police nabbed the accused from their hideout in Illyas goth.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 20th, 2011.
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