KARACHI: A young man who blocked a road in DHA phase-VI on Tuesday evening, fired random shots into the air and held a passer-by family hostage at gunpoint before being arrested by the police is a trained pilot, said a police officer on Wednesday.

“Held accused Kashif Chishti is an educated person, who has done a flying course and is a trained pilot,” said Darakhshan police SHO Ghulam Hussain Pirzada.

However, the officer said that he was under the influence of drugs at the time of the committing of the offence.

Read: Lone gunman in DHA road standoff overpowered

Tracing the origins of the incident, the Darakshan police officer said that Kashif Chishti visited a petrol station owned by his father somewhere in the city on Monday and demanded money from its cashier. The cashier told him that his father, Arif Chishti, had forbidden him from giving any money to his son. The suspect returned home and had a heated argument with his father and other family members. He even opened fire on his family members, but they remained unhurt. On Monday night he left his home in a car with his wife.

On receiving information about the firing incident, a Darakhshan police team rushed to the spot on Monday night and asked the father if he intended to pursue the case. On Tuesday morning, Arif Chishti visited the police station and lodged an FIR against his son for an attempted murder, said the SHO.

On Tuesday evening, Kashif Chishti parked his car on the main road on Khayaban-i-Ittehad and took out a sub-machine gun and a 9mm pistol.

He fired multiple shots into the air, spreading panic and fear in the area, which resulted in the suspension of vehicular traffic on the road.

“Later, he climbed on to the rooftop of his car, sat there and kept firing his gun into the air,” said an official at the Darakhshan police station. “He fired at least six gunshots in a row and a few of the bullets also hit the windscreen of his own car. He then intercepted a rickshaw carrying a family and took hostage a girl travelling with the family.”

The standoff became tense when the armed man apparently finished off all his ammunition in the firing, and sensing that the policemen present at the scene had begun moving forward, he added.

“As the policemen were trying to persuade him to surrender, one of the TV reporters covering the event overpowered him,” said the official. Answering a question, the Darakhshan SHO said that the family had become fed up with him as the suspect demanded too much money from his father to purchase drugs etc.

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2015

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