September 03, 2008	Wednesday	Ramazan 2, 1429

KARACHI, Sept 2: A 50-year-old mason and his 22-year-old son were killed in the small hours of Tuesday when they were run over by a truck in Landhi, police and witnesses said.

They said the victims were on their motorcycle behind a wood-laden truck on the Dawood Chowrangi bridge when the brakes of the heavy vehicle failed and it slid back, crushing the victims.

The witnesses said the two victims died instantly and the truck driver fled the scene immediately after the incident.

Sub-inspector Misal Khan, the official in charge of Khuldabad police post in the limits of Shah Latif Town police, told Dawn that he reached the spot a few minutes after the fatal incident to find the bodies of Allah Ditta and his son, Adnan.

“The heads of the victims were smashed,” he said and added that the bodies were first taken to the police kiosk and then shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for medico-legal proceedings.

The police officer said the victims, residents of Madina Colony, Quaidabad, were masons and they were going to their workplace near Korangi Crossing when they met the accident at around 6.30am.

He said the driver of the truck (JT-8583) fled the scene and efforts were being made to track him down. He added that the truck had been impounded.

He said the unidentified driver was booked in the case (FIR 511/08) under Section 320 of the Pakistan Penal Code for committing qatl-i-khata by rash or negligent driving on the complaint of Allah Ditta’s younger brother, Faqeer Mohammed, son of Abdur Rehman.

The offence involves a punishment of either description for a term which may extend to 10 years in addition to Diyat.

Carjacking and mobile snatching

As many as 34 vehicles – 15 automobiles and 19 motorcycles – were taken away in different parts of the city on the first day of Ramazan.

Sources at the Citizen-Police Liaison Committee said that four cars were snatched at gunpoint in the police precincts of Clifton, Gulberg, Gulshan-i-Iqbal and Jamshed Quarters, while thieves took away 11 automobiles in the police limits of Bin Qasim, Clifton, Gadap, Gulberg, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, North Nazimabad and Saddar.

They said at least eight motorcycles were snatched at gunpoint in Baldia Town, Jamshed Quarters, Korangi, Landhi, North Nazimabad and Saddar.

The sources said the bandits also snatched as many as 19 cellular phones and stole 17 others in different parts of the city.

They said that as many as 84 vehicles – 19 cars and 65 bikes – and 84 cellular phones were either snatched at gunpoint or stolen across the city on Monday.