BAHAWALNAGAR: A gang of eight robbers on Sunday held a family hostage and looted valuables that were bought as dowry and tortured the family.

In Chak Dhabban, eight men entered the house of Dost Muhammad Khund, held his family hostage and looted dowry worth millions of rupees.

Khund told Dawn that the robbers had looted the entire dowry as well as jewellery his family had purchased for his daughter’s wedding.

He elaborated that eight men entered his house in the wee hours of Sunday after scaling the boundary wall, held the family hostage at gunpoint and looted the house for three hours.

He said the robbers fractured his arm and also tortured other members of the family for resisting the robbery.

They looted cash, gold jewellery, electronic items and other valuables and fled from there.

In another incident on Sunday, robbers broke into a shop in Khadimabad on main Minchinabad road and looted mobile phones worth Rs600,000 as well as Rs500,000 in cash.

The shopkeepers demanded the district police officer intervene and help recover the looted cash and valuables.

These robbery incidents followed three others over the last three days. A Saddar police source said a large number of robbery cases go unreported as the police station concerned either refused to lodge the case or only registered the details in the daily diary to dodge the complainant.

Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2019