SANGHAR, May 2: Three more policemen were wounded on Friday as the ongoing encounter between the police and bandits near the Saleh Waryah village, Tando Adam, entered its third consecutive day.

The wounded policemen were identified as Asghar Rajput, Shahmir Sahejo and Qadir Bakhsh Keerio. The condition of Asghar Rajput was stated to be serious after suffering a bullet injury in the head. He was shifted to the neurology ward of the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences, Hyderabad.

Bandits had attempted to break free of the police cordon by attacking at 11:30pm on Thursday night and the ensuing gunbattle had continued till 6am on Friday.

The armoured personnel carrier, which had been called from Sukkur, to flush out the bandits from the banana orchard spread over an area of 32 acres, got stuck after its tracks slipped off its wheels as it entered the plantation at 6pm on Thursday forcing the police commandos to abandoned it and retreat to safety.

The APC had remained stranded for over 15 hours and was recovered from the banana plantation on Friday enabling the police officials to comb the orchard again.

Workers, employed to cut banana plants from the plantation’s northeastern side, are being provided cover by two other APCs. The police is hopeful of getting closer to the bandits by cutting the banana plants, which is costly, time consuming and dangerous.

Fresh reinforcements of the police had been called in to fortify the siege laid by the police.

It was also learnt that the police believed that bandits would again attempt to try to break the police’s blockade while it was also feared that some of the bandits’ accomplices might attack the police from outside their cordon.

The encounter, which started on Wednesday, had already claimed the lives of two policemen while five of their colleagues had been injured.