Two houses looted in brazen ‘police robbery’

Suspects lock inmates in rooms, decamp with cash, mobile phones and jewellery worth millions of rupees

KARACHI:

In another case of brazen robbery involving supposed police officers in less than a month, five suspects, including some clad in police uniform, robbed two houses in Fareed Goth, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, on the night between Friday and Saturday.

As per details, three suspects, disguised as uniformed police officers, raided the residence of a man named Amir Khan in Fareed Goth before dawn on Saturday. They decamped with valuables and cash by scaling a wall of the adjacent house belonging to one Najibullah.

They locked the family in a room and took away six expensive mobile phones, cash, gold jewelry worth Rs2.5 million, and even the DVR of the CCTV camera installed in the house.

While sharing details of the brazen robbery, Amir Khan recalled that somebody knocked at his door late Friday night, identifying themselves as police officers verifying identity cards due to suspicions of illegal aliens.

“Five of them, some clad in police uniform, entered the house, and as I went inside to bring my ID card, they took control, robbing my family before moving on to Najibullah’s house,” he claimed.

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Najibullah, who is a K-Electric contractor, revealed that the uniformed suspects confined his family members to a single room, systematically ransacked the wardrobes, and stole mobile phones, cash, gold jewellery, and CDR records during a robbery that lasted for almost two and a half hours.

Station House Officer Waqar Qaiser said that two of the suspects wore shalwar-kameez, indicating that they might not be legitimate police officers. He assured that the suspect will be apprehended soon. The victims appealed to the IG Sindh police and other law enforcement high-ups to bring the perpetrators to justice and recover the stolen goods and cash.

On November 19, around 20 policemen in uniform and civvies raided the house of a sanitary ware wholesaler in Orangi Town, took the family members hostage and ran away with Rs20 million in cash along with 70 to 80 tolas of gold, laptops, mobile phones, and other valuables.

Later a police inquiry found DSP Umair Tariq Bajari involved in the heist. DSP Bajari was subsequently suspended by IGP Riffat Mukhtar Raja after he was booked in the case under charges of dacoity and kidnapping on the complaint of the affected businessman.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 3^rd, 2023.