At least seven armed men robbed a Habib Bank branch in Shadbagh police jurisdiction of around nine hundred thousand rupees on Thursday.
The robbers armed with pistols entered the bank near Gol Bagh Chowk at around 4:30pm and beat up two guards.
They held up the bank staff hostage, collected the money, and fled on motorbikes. The robbery took just a few minutes, said police officials. Witnesses said that the police arrived around 30 minutes after the robbery. They said that during the robbery, some men went into the bank building while others stood guard outside.
Deputy Inspector General (Operations) Ghulam Mehmood Dogar and the Superintendents of Police (SPs) for operations, investigation and the Crimes Investigation Agency (SIA) visited the crime scene.
CIA SP Malik Liaqat said that there had been some 10 or 11 robbers.
They entered the bank at 4:26pm and hit the guards with the guns. They fled with more than Rs800,000 and the robbery took about 3-4 minutes, he said. The SP was very critical of the security guards at the gate, saying they had not even moved to stop the robbers.
“Security companies are providing incompetent guards,” he said.
Faiz Gulshan, the acting Shadbagh station house officer (SHO), said that six or seven men aged about 25 to 30 and armed with guns entered the bank at 4:20pm.
He said they spoke Pashto and wore shalwar qameez. He said that they thrashed two of the four guards at the bank.
Both received minor injuries and were given first aid at the scene. He said that the robbers had taken Rs900,000 from the counter.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 20th, 2012.
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