Deadly shootout under scanner after 4 deaths

Criticism grows over high-fatality encounters, no police hurt

HYDERABAD:

The Hyderabad police on Saturday shot dead four suspects in an encounter, bearing hallmarks of being stagy with all cops returning unscathed, citing robbery in a passenger bus as their recent major crime. It is the third time in three-and-a-half-year to see this high figure of deaths in a single shootout by Hyderabad police.

Albeit, in the previous two encounters, the police justified their action by making a strong case against the slain sus-pects unlike the present incident in which only a passing mention of robbing passengers in a bus coming from Mirpurkhas to Hyderabad has been mentioned. Four suspects allegedly involved in robbing a cash delivery van were gunned down in October, 2022, and as many in October, 2025, for killing a teenager in Karachi in a vehicle robbery hours before their own deaths.

The police spokesman Inspector Shahid Usman informed that Tandojam police, headed by its SHO, was engaged in an exchange of fire with seven armed suspects on Tando Qaisar link road. The reinforcements from Tando Yousuf and Rahuki police stations, led by the respective SHOs, soon joined their counterparts and the two-way firing resulted in deaths of four suspects while their three accomplices managed to escape.

The slain suspects were later identified as Abdul Qadoos Lashari, Asad Bozdar, Abdul Jabbar Sabzoi and Irfan Buledi. Their dead bodies were shifted to Liaquat University Hospital for postmortem. The identities of their fled associates are still not know.

The spokesman shared a one-page brief containing information about FIRs in various cities of Sindh in which the de-ceased were nominated. Lashari was booked in 12 FIRs in Sukkur, Khairpur, Jamshoro and Dadu districts; Sabzoi in four in Karachi and Shikarpur; Bozdar in three FIRs in Karachi; and Buledi in three in Karachi.