LARKANA: Three armed men intercepted a car driven by a cash supplier to the counters of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) near Rasool Abad locality within the jurisdiction of the Civil Lines police station and deprived him of Rs8.7 million cash on Monday.

Victim Abid Ali Arain was on his way to a BISP counter at the new bus terminal after withdrawing the cash from the Bank Square Branch of the HBL when the alleged robbers came in the car fixed with hooters, robbed him and fled.

However, talking to Dawn, Larkana SSP Kamran Nawaz Panjotha expressed doubt over the robbery and said the amount snatched, according to the victim, was Rs6 million. Initial investigations indicated that Abid Ali kept on changing statements regarding colour of the car and location of the incident while statements of eyewitnesses were very much contradictory to his information, the SSP said.

Usually the man had eight private guards with him to ensure safe supply of cash to the BISP counters. But on the day of the incident, there was not a single guard with him, which raised doubts, the SSP said.

Things would be clear till night as investigations were on in different dimensions, he said.

Abid Ali Arain was taken in the protective custody for further probe, the SSP said.

Distribution centres of the BISP in Larkana were immediately closed in the wake of today’s incident, sources in the BISP said.

Published in Dawn, April 21st, 2015

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