Two robbers involved in several bank heists gunned down

Karachi

Two notorious bank robbers were said to be gunned down in a shootout with personnel of the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) Karachi on Thursday.

The two were allegedly involved in the three bank heists that took place in Karachi this year and the Sindh government had announced a reward of Rs1 million for their arrest.

Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Mohammed Farooq Awan of the SIU Karachi said that investigations regarding bank heists were underway during which he was tipped that members of a dacoit gang were expected to attempt a robbery in the Korangi Industrial Area (KIA).

Acting on the tip-off, an SIU team was deployed in the KIA for surveillance, during which the officers witnessed three suspects on two motorcycles, who engaged the personnel in an encounter after they were signaled to stop. 

Two of the robbers were arrested in injured condition, while the third one managed to escape.

The injured robbers were taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) where both were pronounced dead.

SSP Awan said the killed robbers were identified as Arsalan Iqbal and Dilawer alias Murad alias Tiger.

Two pistols and a motorcycle, which is said to be a stolen property of the SITE police station, were found.

The officers have also seized several mobile phones from their possession that were snatched during different bank robberies.

According to Awan, the killed robbers were operating a notorious gang of bank dacoits and were involved in a number of bank heists since 2013, including the recent three bank robberies in Karachi.

The accused were identified through CCTV footages that were captured during bank robberies committed by the group in the past. 

The accused during the year 2016 were alleged to committing three bank robberies, of which they had looted Rs1.2 million from the Allied Bank branch in Korangi on January8, and also took away the weapons from the guards.

On January 20, they robbed the JS Bank branch in Gulistan-e-Jauhar and took away Rs0.4 million along with the guards’ weapons.

The killed robbers had also looted another branch of the JS Bank, situated in the Sahcal area, from where Rs4.1 million was looted and the staff and customers in the bank were deprived of their cell phones.

After this development, SSP Awan said, the three bank robbery cases in 2016 had been resolved by the SIU along with the previous 11 cases, since the same gang was involved in those bank robberies as well.