MIRPURKHAS, June 23: Police shifted a coach stand out of Umerkot town on Sunday amid allegations the action was politically-motivated.

The operator of the stand, Ghulam Mohammad Mahar, termed police action part of political victimisation and alleged that police had also snatched Rs20,000 from him.

Police said they took the action after acting taluka municipal officer received a complaint from the headmaster of Government Primary School Patshala about the stand, and requested police to shift it to somewhere else.

Mr Mahar, accompanied by a nazim of a union council Bux Mangrio, said at a press conference that he would challenge police action in court. He said that he was being victimised despite the fact that he had got a permission from taluka nazim of Umerkot and former DCO for the stand. Why only his stand had been singled out for action when the others still existed inside the town, he asked.

The district information secretary of Pakistan People’s Party Burhan Kumbhar rejected Mahar’s allegations and said that the action had been taken on the complaint of head master of a primary school.

ROBBERIES: Armed robbers looted thousands of rupees cash, mobile phones and motorcycles in three separate incidents at different places in the district on Monday.

In the first incident, robbers in a car snatched Rs100,000 from Mohammad Shafiq Kaimkhani of Kot Ghulam Mohammad town when he came out of the main branch of the National Bank of Pakistan after withdrawing the amount.

In the second incident, three bandits, two of them masked, barged into the house of Noor Mohammad, a contractor, in Ali Talpur town in the jurisdiction of Satellite Town police station and looted Rs28,000 after holding the inmates hostage.

In the third incident, robbers stopped two motorcyclists, Shafiq Ahmed and Waqar Younus, in Digri town when they were going to Deh 159 village and robbed them of Rs12,000, two cell phones and their motorcycles.

Protest: A large number of relatives and family members of a man who was killed a couple of day ago staged a rally on Monday in protest against failure of Satellite Town investigation police to arrest the murderers.

The protesters, led by Imtiaz Shah and Mohammad Hanif Shah, were carrying banners and placards and demanding arrest of the culprits. They marched on main roads of the city before terminating the rally in front of the press club.They told journalists that they had lodged a case against some accused after Pervez Shah was shot dead. The accused had also killed another youth in the past but the investigation police did not arrest them, they claimed.

They demanded that the Sindh chief minister and governor, PPO, RPO of Hyderabad and DIG of Mirpurkhas zone should order arrest of the accused.

ARREST: Police on Monday claimed to have arrested a dacoit after a brief encounter near Bandi Shakh of Digri taluka and said his accomplices managed to escape.

Mirpurkhas DPO Mazhar Nawaz Shaikh told journalists that Digri police cordoned off the area where the dacoits were hiding and after a brief exchange of fire arrested Shaukat Ali Leghari alias Shoki and found a 30 bore pistol and 10 rounds in his possession while his accomplices managed to flee.

He said that the dacoit was involved in 20 cases and was awarded death sentence by Anti-Terrorism Court of Hyderabad in a case lodged at Digri police station under section 17(4). The dacoit had escaped from the court, the DPO said.

DETAINED: Mukhtiarkar of Kot Ghulam Mohammad town Abid Soomro on Monday detained two landlords for their failure to pay dues of agriculture taxes on time.

The incident has caused resentment among land owners of the taluka.