Two gangs busted, four robbers held

Two of them confess to committing HBL robbery, SSP rules out wrongdoing in Sunday raid.

RAWALPINDI:

The Rawalpindi police on Monday claimed to have arrested four members of two separate gangs involved in bank robberies and other criminal activities in the twin cities.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Operations Dr Akhtar Abbas said the Civil Lines police arrested Badshah Khan of Kohat and Rashid Ellahi of Mandra for looting Rs2.7 million from a Habib Bank Limited (HBL) branch in Dehri Hassanabad on May 16.

The police officer said they had recovered Rs150,000 from the arrested men along with a recently purchased Toyota Corolla. The SSP said the recovered money was snatched by the gang from a man near Dhoke Jumma.

Dr Abbas said two other members of their gang are yet to be arrested, but the men in custody have confessed to looting Rs4.5 million from an HBL branch in the Tarnol area of Islamabad on May 8.

The SSP further informed that the Gunjmandi police separately arrested two other men, Nadeem Kiani alias Ghora of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Ali Gibran of Rawalpindi, for their involvement in eight different robberies and street crimes.

The police officer said the gang busted by the Gunjmandi police was known as the Ghora Group and the police had been after them for a while.

Earlier, the police obtained physical custody of the arrested men from the area magistrates to further interrogate the suspects.

Responding to a question about the authenticity of the police encounter carried out on May 20 in village Mial Chontra, the SSP ruled out any wrongdoing. SSP Abbas stressed that the two men who were arrested, and the other four who were killed, were all wanted in multiple cases of murder.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 22^nd, 2012.