5 policemen killed in Mirpurkhas gunfight

HYDERABAD: Five policemen were killed whilst in pursuit of a gang of kidnappers in Mirpurkhas district on Saturday. Four suspected kidnappers were also killed in the encounter which lasted for roughly nine hours between 10pm on Friday and 7am on Saturday. Eight police officials were injured in the exchange of fire and one of them is said to be in a critical condition.

The shootout took place in Akhtar Colony of Mehmoodabad town, where the suspects lived in a rented bungalow. The deceased police officials include two SHOs Wahid Bux Laghari and Hassan Raza Abidi of Hyderabad police and Anwar Jameel, Dilbar Unar and Abdul Jabbar Shaikh of the Rapid Response Force. The officials were part of the first contingent to raid the bungalow.

“The kidnappers used their own women and children as shields and that is the reason the police suffered more casualties,” said IG Sindh police Ghulam Hyder Jamali, who spoke to the media after attending the funeral prayers for four of the deceased policemen in Hyderabad. “As our men were getting hit, we could have resorted to indiscriminate fire using grenades and other heavy weapons but we held back due to the presence of women and children.”

The slain kidnappers, two of whom carried head money, were identified as Shafiq alias Chotu Narejo, Qurban Narejo, Wahab Narejo and Jan Muhammad Narejo.

The Hyderabad police, which has jurisdiction over nine districts of Hyderabad Division, has detected at least two gangs of kidnappers involved in 22 kidnappings reported in 2014. Some politicians, lawyers, tribal chiefs, university students and other white-collar workers are also said to be part of these networks. The gangs also planned four separate bids to kidnap Chinese workers from Matiari and Hyderabad last year.

According to police sources, Hyderabad police received a tip-off from a female informant in Mirpurkhas, who reported that Chotu Narejo was residing in a bungalow in Mirpurkhas. A police team was sent to conduct a search operation.

“We searched a couple of houses before knocking at Narejo’s door,” one of the injured police constables told The Express Tribune. “A woman spoke from behind the gate asking who we were. When we identified ourselves as police officials, she went away and the house’s lights were switched off,” PC Ghulam Hussain Memon said. “We climbed over the gate but to our surprise we were welcomed with gunshots,” the constable said.

Police officials from Mirpurkhas, Tando Allahyar, Umerkot and Hyderabad districts reached the spot after midnight. SSP Hyderabad Irfan Baloch and SSP Mirpurkhas Usman Ghani sustained two gunshot wounds as they led the operation. “I didn’t know the suspects would put up such resistance or I would have sent a larger contingent for the raid,” Ghani told The Express Tribune.

MS of Hyderabad’s Civil Hospital Dr Rafiqul Hasan Khokhar said two bodies and eight injured policemen were brought to the hospital. The other three deceased were taken to the Civil Hospital Mirpurkhas. The funeral prayers for SHO Laghari, attended by the IG and other officials, were offered in his native village Saeed Khan Leghari in Matiari district.

IG Jamali said he will recommend the government announce the Quaid-e-Azam Police Award for the ‘martyred policemen’ and compensate their families with Rs2 million each as well as employment.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2015.