Man shot dead, wife ‘kidnapped’ by cousins

Fleeing suspects injured, arrested after police encounter; woman rescued

KARACHI: A man was shot dead while his wife was kidnapped by armed assailants from a house in Indus village, Gulshan-e-Maymar, on Saturday night. The police later shot and injured the fleeing suspects in an encounter, rescuing the woman.

According to Gulshan-e-Maymar SHO Shahid Hussain, the police had initially believed that the man, identified as 35-year-old Siraj Lehri Ghulam Shah, was gunned down in a robbery bid. However, they later discovered that it was a kidnapping attempt.

Hussain stated that the police were informed about the incident through the Madadgar 15 helpline, following which they arrived at the scene and had an exchange of fire with the fleeing suspects.

Two suspects and two passersby were injured in the encounter, with the police arresting the wounded suspects and taking the kidnapped woman, Shehrbano, into their custody. Two pistols and a dagger were also seized from the possession of the assailants.

The deceased and the injured were shifted to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where the suspects were identified as Zahoor Ahmed, 50, and Saifullah, 40, while the wounded citizens were identified as Rab Nawaz, 50 and Bahadur Ali, 42.

Per Hussain, Shehrbano had revealed in her statement that she had married Shah against her family's will and the arrested men were her cousins, who had attempted to kidnap her.

Meanwhile, the suspects, who hailed from Khad Kocha in Balochistan's Mastung district, stated that Shah had brought their cousin Shehrbano to Karachi in 2015 and they had been searching for him since then. They claimed that they had been told Shah had kidnapped her and was holding her without being married.

Ahmed and Saifullah also accused Shah of being involved in motorcycle theft and other crimes in Mastung, adding that his real name was Zaheer and he was booked in several cases in his hometown.

They added that they had been accompanied by another cousin, who had killed Shah on the pretext of honour when they came to rescue Sherbano, who was, according to them, willing to leave with them.

However, they narrated, they surrendered to the police when the law enforcers encircled their car but the police opened fire on them.

Shah's postmortem suggested that he was shot six times, with one of the bullets aimed at his forehead.

According to the police, Shah had been residing in the house for the past five years.

Further investigations are underway.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 22^nd, 2020.