Locker cracker gang busted
Top four aces of a gang involved in cleaning up lockers of several banks in the city were by police and federal agents.
In a joint operation on Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan Road, the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) police and the Federal Intelligence Agency (FIA) personnel apprehended the ringleader of an inter-provincial gang that had who robbed banks, broke bank lockers and attacked police in Karachi, Islamabad Lahore and other cities.
SIU SSP Arif Aziz said the alleged ringleader Nasir Husain Pir and his three accomplices Muhammad Ali Langra, Jalal Shata and Kamal Hussain were wanted in at least 33 cases of murder, attempted murder, firing on police, robbery and possessing explosives charges.
Police and FIA team recovered Rs1.5 million cash, prize bonds worth Rs2.3 million, three pistols, a gas cylinder and welding torch, with cutters and a white car from the suspects.
According to SSP, the strategy suspects adopted to commit crime was that they used to get their gang members recruited as security guards in various security companies and after their deployment in different banks, they used to get details from them. Then, together with these security guards, they used to break lockers of banks to loot cash, prize bonds and gold jewellery.
The SSP said that the ring leader and his accomplices had planned to break the locker room of National Bank Karachi's Quaidabad branch and had come to Karachi with the intention of breaking the locker but were arrested before they could commit the crime.
SIU SSP Arif Aziz said that nine accomplices of the arrested suspects including Laeeq Hussain, Safar Ali, Khalid Khan, Ali Afzal, Zahid Hussain, Farid Khan Chandra, Kashif Ali, Manzoor Ahmed f Gajan and Syed Muhammad Abul Hassan have already been arrested.
Meanwhile, 11 others including Syed Abul Hassan, Syed Jabir Hussain, Syed Lal Bacha, Syed Munir, Mashkoor Khan Askar, Syed Sartaj Hussain, Konain Haider, Adnan Bahadur, Nadeem Punjabi and Owais are still at large.
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SSP Aziz said that Nasir Husain was imprisoned in 2007 at the Karachi Central Jial, however, he feigned sickness and was rushed to a hospital where his accomplices attacked the police party and took him away. Ever since then police were trying to arrest him. Nasir and his accomplices were again arrested in Lahore in 2016, however in course of investigation they were brought to Rawalpindi. The gang ambushed the police party near Rawat and set free all of their men.
In 2014, Langra and his other accomplices had looted cash and gold jewellery by breaking 52 lockers of MCB Employees Foundation Bank, Nishtar Road, Soldier Bazaar, Karachi.
On October 29, 2016, Nasir and Muhammad Ali Langra along with their other accomplices broke 10 lockers of Faisal Bank situated near Tooba Masjid in Defense Housing Authority, Karachi and escaped along with cash and gold jewellery worth Rs.43 million. The SIU arrested Manzoor Ahmed and Syed Muhammad Hassan in the case while Nasir was declared a fugitive.
Later, SIU arrested Langra and security guard Kashif, while Nasir and Syed Jalal remained fugitive in the case.
On March 3, 2019, accused Nasir, Langra and Jalal, with the help of security guard Kashif and their other accomplices, broke 66 lockers of Askari Bank situated in Gulshan-e-Iqbal Block-3, and took away cash, prize bonds and gold jewellery worth Rs270 million, the SSP SIU said. During the incident, the suspects had also taken away weapons of two security guards Aslam and Mukhtiar.
On March 7, 2020, Nasir along with his other accomplices broke 39 lockers of Summit Bank Gaddafi Chowk Branch Multan and looted cash and jewelry.
On April 10, 2021, Nasir and his gang broke 42 lockers at UBL Sakhi Hassan Branch and looted cash, prize bonds and gold jewellery worth Rs150 million. Later, SIU police arrested six suspects including Safar Ali, Khalid Khan, Ali Afzal, Laeeq Hussain, Zahid Hussain and Farid Khan whereas accused Nasir and Syed Jalal remained fugitive.
The SSP SIU said that the arrested accused had planned to break into the locker room of National Bank Karachi's Quaidabad Branch and had come to Karachi with the intention of breaking the locker but where arrested by the SIU police and arrested them along with weapons and tools used in breaking bank lockers.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 3rd, 2021.