KARACHI, April 7: Four members of the Arshad Pappu gang were killed early on Saturday morning in Lyari during a shootout with police. Officials said a Baghdadi police team reached Gali No. 1 at Shah Baig Lane, near Old Committee Road, around 4am after being tipped about the presence of the gangsters.
They said the police party and the criminals exchanged fire for 15 minutes, in which Shah Zeb, Farhan Falaj, Imran Commando and Waheed Chhotoo were killed.
The police shifted the bodies to the Jinnah Hospital where sources said the suspected criminals, all in their early 20s, had received multiple bullet wounds.
No police official or anybody else was hurt in the shootout, though the police claimed to have seized two Kalashnikovs, two repeaters, one hand-grenade and 500 live bullets from the gangsters.
SHO Sajjad Haider said he headed the raiding party which comprised 16 policemen. He said the gangsters started intense firing when the police reached the spot in two mobile vans.
He said he and his team returned the fire. “The gangsters were fatally wounded in the exchange of fire and they died on their way to hospital”, he added.
The SHO, however, did not know why the police shifted the injured gangsters to the Jinnah Hospital instead of shifting them to the nearby Civil Hospital.
He said Shah Zeb was wanted in over 60 criminal cases of murder, attempt to murder, kidnapping for ransom and drug trafficking. “He had a reward of Rs1 million on his arrest,” he added.
The SHO said Shah Zeb was a dreaded criminal who was also involved in extortion. “Last week he kidnapped a man, Rustum, at a wedding ceremony and released him after receiving Rs1 million,” he said.
DSP Hafeez Junejo of the Lyari Task Force told Dawn that he also reached the spot. He said the entire neighbourhood echoed with the intense firing after the shootout between police and gangsters.
He said the criminals and gangsters started heavy aerial firing in parts of Lyari following the police action. “The firing was so intense that we thought that the criminals have surrounded us,” he added.
Sources said Shah Zeb had formed his own gang, though he originally belonged to the Arshad Pappu gang, and worked with Ghaffar Zikri, a closed associate of interned ringleader Arshad Pappu.
