KARACHI, Oct 26: Three armed robbers, including one clad in a burqa, held hostage staff of a foreign exchange company on I.I. Chundrigar Road on Saturday and walked off with a bag filled with local and foreign currency worth around Rs10 million, police said.

The officials added that two men and apparently a woman clad in a burqa entered Glaxy Exchange posing as customers.

“According to the staff, all the three persons posing as customers took their seats in the waiting area,” said Mithadar SHO Inspector Yar Muhammad Rind. “One of the staffers was upstairs and the moment he came to sit at his place carrying a bag filled with foreign and local currency, the burqa-clad bandit rushed to him and put pistol to his forehead.”

In the meantime, he said, two other men pulled out pistols and held the other staff hostage. They snatched the currency bag and ran away to the bikes waiting outside, he said, adding that the private security guards deployed at the company ‘surprisingly’ did not put any resistance.

“We have detained the five guards of a private company that was given the contract for the exchange company security and they are being questioned,” the police inspector said.

The episode came only a day after more than half a dozen armed bandits stormed into a private bank branch in North Karachi and walked off with around Rs4.5 million.

In the fresh case, however, the police investigators claimed that they were very confident about tracking down the suspects after getting hold of some ‘key evidence’.

“We are questioning the relevant people and examining the entire situation very closely,” said SP Farooq Awan of the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) which has been tasked with the investigation of extortion cases along with bank robberies and terrorist activities.

He said there were three bandits and as one of them was wearing a veil the investigators counted her as a woman though they were not sure about it.

“The bandits took just a few minutes to complete the job. They had accurate information about the company’s operations and the entire system. They even knew when cash is brought down from the first floor to the cash counter on the ground floor. This raises several questions and we are very confident about solving the case and reaching the suspects very soon.”