‘Robber’ beaten to death

Family say he broke into their house; his accomplice shot a child, 6.

JAMPUR:

A family caught and allegedly killed a robber on Friday night who had broken into their home.

Two of his accomplices fled.

Police said Malik Abdul Hakeem Machi, the owner, had told them that three armed men had woken up a woman of the family and asked her to hand over the keys to the locked cupboards and chests. She raised an alarm, waking up the entire family. The men of the house were able to overpower one of the robbers, following which the other two fired a few shots in the air. One of the bullets hit Machi’s 6-year-old daughter.



The family members, angry and upset, started beating up the robber they had caught. He died at the spot. The police did not say what injuries he had received or give a cause of death.

The body was sent to the Tehsil Headquarters Hospital for a post-mortem.



The deceased was identified as Kalim. His family alleged that Machi had killed him “to get back at him” and had then concocted the story about the robbery. They did not say why the two men had bad blood between them.

Police said that though the investigation was ongoing, the fact that Kalim was roaming in a village seven kilometres from Jampur in the middle of the night was “suspicious”.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 6^th, 2013.