Dacoits gun down three more cops in Ghotki

Striking with impunity, the bandits of riverine areas killed three more policemen in the Ranoti area of Ubauro, Ghotki district, late on Wednesday night only three days after three cops were killed in a raid on a checkpoint in the same district.

The three policemen were heading to work on a motorbike when they were ambushed in the Miani Ghulam Hussain area by a gang of dacoits.

A police party which arrived at the crime scene after the attack found all the three police constables Shafique Gul Jatt, Abdul Samee Samo and Abdul Hanan Malik dead. The assailants easily escaped after shooting them dead.

This happens to be the second such attack in three days in Ghotki district. On July 28, the cops Abdul Qadir Mahar and Zaheer Ahmed Thaeem were martyred in an identical attack on a police picket in the limits of Andal Sundrani police station.

Three policemen were martyred in June and two in the first week of July in similar attacks on the police pickets in Kashmore-Kandhkot and Ghotki districts. At least seven cops were also injured in those onslaughts.

Namaz-e-Janaza of the martyred young policemen was offered on Thursday in the district's central Eidgah. Later the bodies were sent to their hometowns in Ghotki. Separately, SHO of Machko police station Rana Ramzan died reportedly due to cardiac arrest on Wednesday during a raid against dacoits while a police constable sustained gunshot injuries.

The raid was conducted to recover kidnapped persons. The police claimed to have killed four dacoits. In an emotional video message circulated on social media on Thursday, police constable Javed Pitafi has accused police officers and local political influential figures for patronizing the gangs of dacoits.

"Five jawans have been martyred in cowardly attacks in a few days," lamented Pitafi, who is said to be performing duty in a riverbed area. "We are attacked from behind by craven bandits."