LAHORE, Jan 26: Four robbers looted cash, foreign currency, gold ornaments and other valuables worth Rs11.7 million from the house of a trader in Shadbagh police limits on Thursday.

Haji Mushtaq Ahmad, who deals in iron scrap in Misri Shah market, told Dawn by phone that four masked robbers stormed into his house on Sher Shah Road around 1:15 noon, held female family members and two maids at gunpoint. They locked the women in a room, collected Rs500,000 in cash, few hundred Saudi Riyals, 225-tola gold ornaments, four wristwatches and other valuables and fled after a half-an-hour spree.

Mushtaq said the women were so terrorised that they couldn’t alert the police soon after the incident.

The police have registered a case.

FIRE DEATHS: A young man was burnt alive and a two-year-old child died of suffocation in separate fire incidents in the city on Thursday, Rescue 1122 said.

Sikandar Khan, 50, caught fire while asleep as he had not switched off a gas heater in his room near Babar Chowk on Chandraiy Road. The valuables also reduced to ashes in the fire.

Two-year-old Rehan died of suffocation after a fire broke out in a house due to gas leakage from a cylinder near Ghausia Chowk in Cantonment.

The house owner suffered a loss up to Rs500,000.

A major fire broke out in a paper-board factory on Katcha Ravi Road, burning down valuables worth millions.

Rescue 1122 was battling flames till the filing of this report.

Valuables worth Rs300,000 were gutted when a fire broke out due to a short circuit in the factory of Waheed Awan on Kachha Road in Kahna.

Dies: An alleged car thief, who was injured in an encounter with the police in W-Block of the Defence Housing Authority on Wednesday, died at Lahore General Hospital on Thursday.

Muhammad Ishaq, 35, of Pir Muhammad Colony, Sargodha, was injured in the encounter between three car thieves and the Defence A policemen and was instantly arrested.

His two accomplices, including Ramzan of Sargodha, who was also injured, fled the scene after leaving behind their injured accomplice and a stolen car.

Defence ASP Fida Husain said the police succeeded in getting the statement of Ishaq before he expired at around 7am.

He said Ishaq, who was also allegedly involved in robberies, would stay at his in-laws’ house in Factory Area after committing crimes.

He said the body had been shifted for an autopsy. — Staff Reporter