KARACHI: Family thwarts robbery attempt: Bandits put to flight
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, April 16: A family put up strong resistance to robbers, captured one of their three accomplices and handed him over to the police on Monday. During the scuffle, two family members suffered bullet wounds as the robbers opened fire. Police also reached the spot and took one of the robbers into custody, who was later identified as Yusuf.
Police said Aqsa Begum arrived at the airport from abroad and her brothers Kamal and Bilal went to receive her. They hired a radio cab and as they reached their doorstep in Bhittai Colony, three bandits accosted the family at gunpoint.
The family told police that the robbers ordered them to hand over all valuables, but brothers Kamal and Bilal put up strong resistance to the bandits, who opened fire.
Mehmooda Begum, mother of Aqsa, who had come out of the house to receive her daughter and Kamal suffered bullet wounds, but did not give up resistance.
Two of the robbers sped away in a car while one of the accomplices was captured and the police was informed. The police arrested Yusuf and recovered a TT pistol from him.
His two accomplices managed to steal two mobile phones.Yusuf told police during initial investigation that his accomplices Amjad and Azad used to prepare a plan for robbery and choose the family as their target.
He said that they would usually wait at Korangi Crossing for their victim and as they would decide, they would start chasing that family and loot them. Police were looking for the absconding suspects.
HOUSE GUTTED: A woman died when her house was gutted in Orangi Town on Monday as the house was believed to have been used as a petrol and diesel warehouse.
Police said that the woman, Raheela, 25, wife of Rasheed, locked herself in the kitchen and died there as her house caught fire. Her body was shifted to a hospital for autopsy. Police said that the fire was massive, which indicated the storage of petrol and diesel in the house.
“We could not find remnants of tins or cans used for the storage of petrol or diesel as the fire was massive. We carried out a crackdown recently on outlets that sold smuggled diesel and petrol in the area and some of them may have shifted the fuel to their homes,” TPO Orangi Town Farrukh Basir told Dawn.
He said that the house and a motorcycle parked inside the house were gutted almost completely and a Suzuki pick-up was partially damaged. Rasheed and his brother Nadeem, who deal in smuggled fuel, denied having stored the fuel at their home, and neighbours supported the brothers’ claim.
“In spite of the statement, police believe that Raheela might have ignited (a fire) in the kitchen and the fumes of fuel in the home might have caught the fire that engulfed the entire house,” the TPO said.
