Encounter: Police rescue eight hostages

SUKKUR:

After an encounter with four suspects in Jagan Jatoi village near Shikarpur, the police managed to rescue eight hostages, who were kidnapped a couple of days ago from Khairpur, on Friday night. They also seized four Kalashnikovs from the suspects.

According to a police source, they raided the village after cordoning it off at night. The suspects opened fire at them and the police retaliated by shooting back. This continued for an hour. The police eventually overpowered the suspects and managed to rescue eight people, including Shaman Memon, Abdul Qadir alias Papoo Larik, Haji Sonaro and Shafqat Kalhoro. The names or political affiliation of suspects was not disclosed.

While talking to The Express Tribune, Khairpur DSP Abdul Qadir Chandio said that a few days a wanted criminal identified as Elahi Bux alias Ellahoo Jatoi was arrested and in retaliation his gang abducted eight people.

Sources claim that Jatoi struck a deal with the police and this is how they managed to rescue the hostages. The DSP denied these claims and said that they had received a tip-off about the kidnappers and had acted on it.

Shaman Memon, Qadir, Sonaro and Kalhoro were kidnapped on March 24 on their way to Sukkur. The other four hostages were identified as Zaheer, Mansoor, Irfan Shaikh and two-year-old Safia. They were kidnapped on March 28 near Babarloi.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 1^st, 2012.