SHO among five remanded in police custody in robbery case

A magistrate on Saturday remanded the SHO of the Zaman Town police station and four others in police custody in a case pertaining to robbing a trader of over Rs11 million.

Inspector Rao Rafiq, along with sub-inspector Gul Mohammad, constables Abid Mehmood, Hafeez and Rizwan, has been booked and arrested over their alleged involvement in robbing trader Muhammad Khan.

The investigating officer produced the detained suspects before the judicial magistrate (Malir) and requested their physical remand in police custody for questioning.

He stated that the suspects are required to be investigated about their alleged involvement in the crime and to arrest their accomplices, for which their custody is required.

Accepting his request, the magistrate handed over the suspects to the police on five-day physical remand with a direction to produce them on the completion of the remand without fail.

An FIR has been registered at the Sachal police station under sections 395 (punishment for dacoity) and 342 (wrongful confinement) of the Pakistan Penal Code on the complaint of the trader.

Muhammad Khan stated that he along with his partner Faisal and some others were travelling in two separate cars with Rs11,800,000 cash in three bags when they were stopped by the SHO and his team.

He said they were en route to his residence in Naval Colony from the Superhighway via Lyari Expressway when, at around 4:00am on March 11, they were intercepted by eight to nine policemen in uniform and one individual in plain clothes.

The complainant stated that the cops searched their cars, and deprived all the occupants of their mobile phones, adding that Faisal’s car was locked, and its keys were snatched. “My partner Shahid was made to sit in the police mobile, and a cloth was placed over his face,” he went on.

“I was made to sit in the backseat of my car, and blindfolded. Three officers sat on my left, right and in the middle seat.” He further explained that an officer sat in the driving seat and drove off with them. “My head was pushed down, and I was prevented from raising it, while an officer kept pointing a pistol at me. They kept driving me around for about one and a half hours,” Khan said.

“At a certain location they got out of the car, leaving me inside, and locked the car. They forcefully took away my money, Rs11.8 million, from the car at gunpoint,” he added.

Naeem slams PPP

Jamaat-e-Islami Karachi chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman has censured the Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) government in Sindh over allegedly fanning corruption in the province’s police department instead of bringing reforms during the past one and half decades.

A statement quoted Rehman as saying that police officials in Sindh themselves have become looters, as another SHO deprived a citizen of Rs11.8 million. Reports of short-term abductions have also emerged in the media, he said, and held the PPP government responsible for them.