KARACHI: A police officer was shot dead during an encounter with robbers who were looting the occupants of a vehicle in Nazimabad-2 on Monday, police said.

They added that four suspects were looting people in a Mazda van near Diamond CND at around 8am when a police patrol reached there after receiving information about the robbery.

On seeing the police, the suspects abandoned the vehicle and as ASI Asif Shamoon, 44, disembarked from the van, he was shot at and wounded, said Nazimabad SHO Ejaz Lodhi. The officer who sustained a single bullet wound in the head was taken to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, where doctors declared him dead on arrival.

His colleagues returned fire, wounding one suspect, added the officer. However, the wounded suspect and his three accomplices escaped. Later, the police found a pistol, which the injured suspect might have thrown nearby a general store, the police officer said.

The victim was posted at the Nazimabad police station.

Suspect killed in ‘encounter’

A suspected gangster was shot dead in an alleged encounter in Lyari’s Baghdadi area on Monday.

A police party acting on a tip-off raided a graveyard in Moosa Lane at around 9:40am. On seeing the police, the suspects opened fire in their attempt to flee, and in the ‘retaliatory firing’, one suspect, identified as Abdul Ghaffar Niazi, 25, was killed while his seven accomplices escaped. The body was taken to the Civil Hospital Karachi for a post-mortem examination. Police claimed to have seized a Kalashnikov and two hand-grenades from him.

Published in Dawn, June 17th, 2014