DERA GHAZI KHAN July 8: Police have yet to get rescued their nine colleagues from the Chhotu Mazari gang in the riverside of the Indus in Shahwali police remit in Rajanpur, Dawn learnt from police sources on Monday.

The gangsters had kidnapped nine police officials from two posts in the Kachi Jamal locality after a rocket attack on one of the posts.

Dera Ghazi Khan Regional Police Officer Akhtar Umer Hayat Laleeka told Dawn that police were exercising restraint for the protection of hostages. Police said the hostages were being held in the islands of the Indus River and police found it difficult to reach those islands without bloodshed.

Mr Laleeka said police had besieged the area.

Sources told Dawn that police had picked 30 relatives, including women, of the gangsters to pressure the captors for the safe release of the hostages.

Gang leader Ghulam Rasool, alias Chhotu, talked to the reporter of a private news channel and put up his demands to the government: release his three men from jail; order police to leave the riverine area, and remove pickets from the Kacha area.

Sources said the police were using tribal elder, MPA Atif Mazari, to recover the hostages. Inspector General Khan Baig is expected to visit the scene on Tuesday (today).

RAHIM YAR KHAN: The district police, under the lead of DPO Sohail Zaffar Chatta, are taking part in the rescue operation in the Indus Kacha area, district police’s public relation officer Arshad Nawaz told Dawn on Monday.

It is said the police posts that came under the attack of the Chhotu gang are located in Sonmiani Union Council near the Bhong area of Rahim Yar Khan. Local police sources say 40 gunmen armed with sophisticated weapons attacked the police posts established along the bank of the Indus River on Sunday morning.

Up to 700 policemen have besieged the area full of vegetation. Police plan to increase the contingent to 1,200 in case of a grand operation against the gang.