11 September 2004	Saturday	25 Rajab 1425

LAHORE, Sept 10: Sixteen robbers plundered cash, gold ornaments, diamonds, prize bonds, saving certificates and valuables worth Rs25 million from a bank owner's house at Zaman Park on Friday.

The robbers scaled over 1-Zaman Park house of Seth Allauddin around 3am and overpowered four security guards. They disarmed the guards and roped them before proceeding towards the residential part of the house.

Pushto-speaking, the masked men forced the inmates to wake up and lodged them in a room where some of them stood guard and others moved to search valuables. They got hold of keys to lockers and ransacked each and every place where they could find any valuable, a member of the family told police.

The intruders stayed there for around four hours during which they bagged the valuables. They detained the members of the family in separate rooms and left the scene by two cars, the police quoted the inmates as saying. The cars, the police said, bore no number plates.

DIG Tariq Saleem and investigation police chief Chaudhry Shafqaat rushed to the scene shortly after the family reported the matter to Racecourse police.

In the four-hour investigation on the scene, the police teams drew sketches of the gangsters and showed the family various videos and photographs of criminals from their record. Three teams have been set up to probe the incident, the DIG said, and added they had been asked to keep him posted about the case daily.