KARACHI – The Karachi police have busted the “Rickshaw gang” of looters, which had been involved in more than 200 incidents of snatching cash, jewellery and other valuables from women shoppers, and arrested the gang leader in injured condition along with another accomplice.
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) East Capt (retd) Azfar Mehsar talking to a news conference at Ferozabad Police Station, here on Tuesday said that the gang had been targeting women shoppers for past four years, especially in the posh areas of PECHS, Tipu Sultan, Clifton, Nursery and Gulshan-e-Iqbal.
He said the suspects were arrested by a team made by Superintendent of Police (SP) Jamshed Shumail Riaz on the directive of the SSP East.
“The team comprising of SHO Ferozabad Aurangzeb Khan Khattak and Ghulam Nabi Afridi got a tip-off about the presence of the gang members in PECHS Block-3.
As the police party reached the site, the suspects started firing. The police retaliated the fire and arrested the gang leader in injured condition and his accomplice,” he added.
During interrogation, he said, the suspects told the police that their four-member gang had been targeting only women for the past four-and-a -half-years.
During this period, he said, the suspects targeted more than 200 women. “The suspect would also carry cutters with them to remove women’s jewelry during snatching.”
On the pointation of the suspects, he said, the police recovered more than 70 snatched handbags, over 50 mobile phones, laptops, motorcycle, hundreds of thousands of cash and the rickshaw which was
used in the crime.
The suspects told the police they all formed the gang in jail, where they were under custody in murder and dacoity cases.
The SSP said a member of the gang had been arrested in the injured condition in the limits of Bahadarabad police station one-and-a-half-month ago and he was now in jail.
Additional Inspector General (AIG), Karachi Dr. Amir Shaikh, has announced cash prizes and commendation certificates for Ferozabad police.
Meanwhile, Citizens Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) East and District East police have recovered 25 expensive mobile phones worth hundreds of thousands of rupees and returned them to their owners, according to a police statement.
