Bandits steal millions from Edhi head office

Abdul Sattar Edhi held hostag­e; Rs20 millio­n and five kilos of gold stolen during robber­y

KARACHI: In a daring daylight raid on Sunday, robbers stormed the head office of the Edhi Foundation in Mithadar, where they held staffers including renowned philanthropist Abdul Sattar Edhi hostage before fleeing with valuables worth millions of rupees.

Edhi, who is revered for running one of the country’s largest charities, was sleeping when up to eight gunmen barged into the foundation’s building, which is nestled in Karachi’s congested commercial hub.

They broke into storage vaults that contained five kilogrammes of gold, foreign and local currency worth millions of rupees and fled, leaving the worried octogenarian humanitarian worker to deal with the consequences.

“They [robbers] asked me about Edhi sahib. I said he is sleeping inside a room,” a visibly terrified staffer of the foundation said while talking to The Express Tribune.



The social entrepreneur, who is in his late 80s was still sleeping inside one of the rooms located on the ground floor of his foundation’s head office, when the men dressed in shalwar-kameez pointing handguns at him demanded the keys for the lockers.

While talking to Express News, Edhi said he was woken up from his sleep by the bandits who walked straight to the locker where the money and gold was kept.

“I thought they came to ask me about the Edhi centre but they started asking me about money. I don’t understand how they (bandits) knew that everything was kept in the cupboard,” he said.

“The money and gold stolen belonged to those who entrusted me with it,” Edhi said.

Even after he told them that he didn’t have the keys, they walked up to the cupboard and smashed it.” “They did not manhandle me,” he added.

His son, Faisal Edhi, confirmed that eight to ten men entered the centre and took his father and others present at the centre hostage. He hinted that someone from the staffers either current or former might have been behind the act.

Edhi’s son claimed the bandits fled with Rs50 million along with $400,000 and five kgs gold, much of which he said belonged to members of the public, who are allowed to store cash and valuables with the charity.

Security situation

There were no security guards at the welfare centre at the time of the incident and neither were any CCTV cameras installed. Police have collected fingerprints from the crime scene and have launched an investigation into the matter.

A case has also been registered at the Kharadar police station on behalf of Faisal Edhi against unidentified persons.

Subsequently, Kharadar SHO was suspended while an investigation team headed by Additional IG Karachi Ghulam Qadir Thebo was also constituted to probe the case, which has shocked many across the country.

“We provided him with security but Edhi sahab asked us to withdraw. We are now trying to convince him about security and installation of CCTV cameras,” SSP Sheeraz Nazeer told The Express Tribune.

He said that the police are unwilling to rule out the possibility of the involvement of an insider.

Meanwhile, government officials including the prime minister, provincial governor and chief minister issued a sharp condemnation of the incident and called for an inquiry.

Edhi is credited for running the largest ambulance service in the country – his foundation has a network of offices around the world that raise funds to run what is Pakistan’s largest health charity.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 20^th, 2014.