September 3, 2003	Wednesday	Rajab 5, 1424

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FAISALABAD, Sept 2: Those allegedly involved in the dacoity-cum-murder in which four people were killed on Sunday confessed to having links with gangs in Sindh, and committing a number of dacoities and highway robberies.

A police source said all those involved in the crime had links with an ethnic organization of Sindh. Some of the wanted people in this case had slipped to Karachi and succeeded in taking shelter with this group, he claimed.

According to preliminary interrogation, former banker Naeem was the mastermind behind the incident. He had been striking business deals with the slain currency dealers for the last so many years and had a complete information about their routine as well as the possession of money.

He developed links with the gangsters of Sindh and invited them to Faisalabad for committing the robbery. His wife, Razia Bibi, who belongs to Karachi, had also links with the outlaws as she used to visit Faisalabad and other cities along with them to provide them a shelter during their stay at different places.

The source further claimed that Razia Bibi and her sister, Fatima Bibi, were supervising the dacoity as Razia had made a call by the cell phone recovered from the site of occurrence.

SP (city) Tauqeer Hayat, the head of the investigation team, told this scribe on Tuesday all resources were being utilized for the early arrest of the outlaws and recovery of the remaining prize bonds and cash. He said Khanewal and Karachi police were also cooperating with them in the case.

CASES: The district police reportedly registered some 367 cases of dacoity and robbery during the last eight months.

According to the official statistics, despite separating the investigation wing from the patrol police, the number of dacoities, highway robberies, thefts and incidents of vehicle-snatching are on the rise. From January to August this year, the police registered 367 cases of dacoity and robbery besides 307 murder cases.

A police source said some 200 to 250 applications for the registration of dacoity cases were still pending with different police stations of the district. He said 81 people were kidnapped, seven of them for ransom, during this period, while 299 cases had been registered for kidnapping women.

The source claimed all SHOs had been asked not to register cases of heinous crime till a final approval from the higher authorities so that a low crime graph could be presented before the highups and the media.