October 15, 2008	Wednesday	Shawwal 15, 1429

KARACHI, Oct 14: The constable who was shot dead on Monday near Aladin Park turned out to be a dacoit killed by the young man he had looted at gunpoint.

The Aziz Bhatti police said that the constable, Khalid Yamin, along with his two accomplices had held a mobile phone trader, Shahzad Yousuf, hostage at gunpoint near Millennium Mall on Rashid Minhas Road.

Mr Yousuf told Dawn that three dacoits riding on two motorcycles intercepted him when he was parking his car in front of the shopping centre at 7.45pm. “The pillion rider with the constable showed me a pistol under his shirt and got into my car asking me to keep on driving,” he said.

The victim said the bandit relieved him of Rs35,000 and cellphone in the way. “I pulled over near Aladin Park when I saw the community police and I shouted for their help,” he said.

The mobile phone trader said that he pounced upon the bandit and jabbed him. “The bandit ran away when I forcefully struggled with him,” he said, adding that the bandit’s pistol and mobile phone fell in the car during the struggle.

Mr Yousuf said that his younger brother and some shopkeepers had seen him parking his car and then suddenly leaving again with an unknown man sitting in the rear seat. “My brother called me on my cellphone and asked me why I was leaving. I told him that I was going to meet a client,” he said.

The victim said that he tried to alert his brother as diserectly as he could but in vain. “I called him from the spot after my struggle with the bandit and I was waiting for him to reach there when I saw the three bandits approaching me,” he said.

The mobile phone trader said that the constable and his accomplices snatched from him the pistol their accomplice had left behind.

In the meantime, he said, his brother also reached the spot and the bandits opened fire on them. “My brother had a narrow escape as the bullet hissed over his head,” he said and added that then he took out his licensed pistol and shot at the constable. Both the accomplices of the dacoit fled, he added.

The SHO of Aziz Bhatti police, Syed Waqar Ali, said that the mobile phone trader reported the matter to the police and a case (FIR 248/2008) against the absconding dacoits was registered on his complaint.

Mr Ali said that the police seized two pistols, which included the constable’s licensed pistol, from the spot.

The SP of Gulshan-i-Iqbal Town, Sohail Zafar Chattah, told Dawn that the killed constable, who was posted at the house of the city nazim, had a criminal record. “He was also arrested in a criminal case,” he added.