The robbers fired at the van and broke its windows. CREATIVE COMMONS
Three passenger vans were looted on Thursday.
Six men looted a passenger van on the National Highway in Rahim Yar Khan on Thursday. They fled with thousands of rupees, mobile phones and valuables.
Police said that a Lahore-bound passenger van from Sadiqabad was stopped on LP Road in Dera Faridi by blocking the road. The robbers fired at the van and broke its windows. No one was hurt, police said.
One of the passengers later told police that four men entered the van, while the rest stayed outside. He said they directed the driver to park the van on the roadside. One of them held the driver at gun point and the rest told the passengers to handover their cash, mobile phones and other valuable.
He said they threatened to kill anybody who tried to make a phone call or flee. The robbers made off with more than Rs150,000, 30 mobile phones and other valuables, including gold rings and chains. He said some of the passengers walked to the nearby picket and informed the police.
He regretted that nobody at the police picket had noticed the robbers drive away in a white car.
The police picket in charge said that the robbers must have driven into the fields.
Also on Thursday, two more passenger vans were looted on the National Highway in one incident. Cash, mobile phones and suit cases were taken away. Police registered a case, but no one was arrested. Passengers later protested on the highway against the police’s negligence.
Police said 13 men stopped two passenger vans one after another. They were heading to Karachi from Vehari and Mansehra.
The armed men took Rs400,000, 23 mobile phones and gold jewellery from the 67 people in the two vans. They also snatched weapons from the two guards on the vans.
Later, passengers protested against the police for several hours. Rahim Yar Khan District Police Officer Sohail Habib Tajik visited the place and assured the protesters that the robbers would be arrested soon. The protesters dispersed and left for their destinations.
SP (Investigation) Tanveer Hussain Tunio told The Express Tribune that several teams had been constituted to arrest the robbers.
The teams are supervised by Station House officers Azhar Iqbal, Farrukh Javed, Abbas Akhtar, Jaamullah Yar Saifi, Chaudhry Muhammad Ashraf, Nasir Saqib, Hassan Mehmood Khan Jatoi, Jaam Manzoor Ahmad and Ghulam Mohiuddin.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 8th, 2013.
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