Vigilante justice: Robbers caught red handed, beaten by mob

FAISALABAD:

Villagers of Pir Mehal on Wednesday caught two thieves and handed them over to the police after beating them in public.

A police spokesman said two armed men stopped Habib Ahmad and took away his motorbike, cash and mobile phone at gunpoint near the railway bypass at Chak 667/8-GB.

He said Ahmad returned to the village and informed his family about it.

The spokesman said two dozen villagers set out to find the robbers and caught them while they were robbing Muhammad Ramazan on the same road.

The villagers asked the robbers to surrender but they shot at them and tried to flee. The villagers then called more people for help.

The villagers, some of them armed, chased the robbers and stopped them a few kilometres away.

The spokesman said when the robbers ran out of bullets, the villagers caught them and beat them.

The men fainted from the beating and the mob called the police. A police contingent reached the scene and rescued the men.

Pir Mehal station house officer (SHO) said the police had taken the suspects to a hospital for treatment.

He said they had also recovered two motorbikes, four mobile phones, thousands of rupees in cash and a pistol from them.

He said one of the robbers was identified as Ilyas, son of Nawaz, a resident of Chak 186-GB.

His accomplice had not yet been identified.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 28^th, 2014.