LAHORE: The Crimes Investigation Agency (CIA) police claimed on Friday to have arrested eight members of a gang of hitmen (hired assassins) also involved in robberies and muggings.

Police also seized booty, including gold jewellery, mobile phones, watches and motorcycles worth Rs9 million as well as illegal weapons from them.

CIA Superintendent of Police (SP) Umer Virk told the media ringleader Sarshar Khan, his seven accomplices and four others were still missing. He claimed the suspects had murdered a man after being hired for a huge amount by his rivals, looted Rs10 million from a Mughalpura filling station, and fired at the residence of a university professor after being paid for it.

The SP claimed the suspects had also struck in Gujrat and Gujranwala districts and committed heinous crimes. He said three members Shujaat, Zahid Butt and Imran were sharpshooters-cum-hit men who were proclaimed offenders in murder cases. They would kill people for money.

The trend of hiring hit men to either kill or intimidate people by firing at their houses had increased in 2013. Nine cases had been registered last year as compared to five in 2012. Of the nine cases in 2013, four were assassinations and five firings at residences. Police claimed all cases were traced and the suspects arrested.

A police source claimed the CIA police were currently searching for a gang of men from the Odh community involved in such incidents.

He said Shahbaz Sahi, who had hired services of sharpshooters, protected people in the cable television business in Gujjarpura, Shadbagh and adjacent localities. Any new entrant in the business was either killed or forced to wind up, the source claimed.He further said police lacked evidence in two recent cases in which a suspect had sent sharpshooters for killing a man named Babu and injuring another, Bahadra. He added both were involved in the cable TV business. He, however, said police could not find evidence to arrest the suspect and his shooters because first information reports in such incidents were registered with murder and abetment charges and complainants usually wanted to target their rivals.

He said two organised gangs run separately by Mobeen Butt and Aslam Bassa around nine years ago had been busted and several of their members killed in police encounters. The source, however, said the remaining members were still in the city and operating individually.