KARACHI, Sept 14: Three suspected robbers were killed in a pre-dawn police encounter in a North Karachi locality on Saturday.Police said that armed bandits on motorbikes pulled up outside a 120-square-yard house in North Karachi’s Sector 3 near Rahmania Masjid at around 4.30am. Four of them stormed into the house and two stayed outside.

“However, a neighbour saw some suspicious movement at that house and called police helpline Madadgar 15,” said SP Qamar Zaman. “After confirming the location, the Madadgar 15 passed a message to the Khawaja Ajmer Nagri police, who rushed to the scene in two mobile vans.”

The SP said that the police saw two suspects standing outside the house. Sensing danger, the suspects fired shots and the police returned fire.

Three suspected bandits were killed in an exchange of gunfire, which lasted for more than 10 minutes. Their other accomplices, however, managed to ride away, SP Zaman added.

The bodies were shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where one of the suspects was identified as Mairaj Khan.

“He was identified with the help of an identity card found in his pocket. According to his ID card he was a resident of Manghopir. The other two remained unidentified but we hope to trace their family connections very soon,” the SP added.

Mother of five stabbed to death

A young woman was stabbed to death in Shireen Jinnah Colony on Saturday.

Police said that Razia Bibi, 35, had a dispute with her husband Muhammad Tajammul, as he was forcing her to sell a piece of land she owned in Punjab.

“The victim also brought the situation into the notice of her family and in-laws,” said an official at the Jackson police station. “But the situation worsened in the early hours of the day, when a debate between the couple over the same dispute turned ugly and her husband attacked her with a kitchen knife and escaped. The injured was brought to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where she died during treatment.”

She was mother of five.

He said the police had registered a case (FIR 380/13) against the victim’s husband on a complaint of her elder sister, Kundan Mai, who lived in the same area.